• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

CHAPTER 17

AN EMBARRASSING WAY TO DIE

A lot of American wrestling experts feel that luchadores aren’t actual wrestlers because of their unorthodox style. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the wrestlers in the EMLL were the best in the world. Aside from Negro, performers such as Dr. Wagner Jr., Emilio Charles Jr., and el Dandy were tremendous. The tag team of Los Cowboys, Texano and Silver King (aka Ramses from Nacho Libre), were two more of my favorites. They worked a stiff fast-moving, Japanese-Mexican hybrid style, which was different from what most of the other luchadores were doing.

The first time I worked with them they nailed me with every kick and punch and I thought they were fucking with me. After a few more matches against them, I realized that that’s just how they worked and they expected to be hit the same way in return. That made them different from the other luchadores, who worked pretty light, which is one of the criticisms that people within the business have of lucha libre. But the marquee names in the EMLL were top-level major-league performers and the more I worked with them the better I got.

I also got better at living in Mexico City. The hardest part was getting acclimated to the altitude and the pollution. The city was high above sea level and engulfed in smog for most of the year, which made breathing difficult. It sat in a valley and during certain times of year when there was no rain or wind, the smog would settle in like a fog, which caused me countless nosebleeds and irritation.

But natural disasters like poisonous air and earthquakes weren’t the worst dangers I’d face in Mexico. The biggest danger came courtesy of another human being.

One of my favorite restaurants in the country was VIP’s, a diner similar to Denny’s that served tremendous American-style food. I was eating my favorite dinner of a steak sandwich with a fruit plate, when I noticed a really cute girl staring at me from across the crowded room. I waved at her and she beckoned me to come over to the table she was sitting at with another guy. She spoke decent English and admitted that she and her brother (bonus!) were fans of mine. We spoke for a few minutes and she asked me if I wanted to go to a party with them. Did I? She was a knockout and I wanted to rock with her big time, so I accepted immediately. I played big shot and paid for their meals, then got into their car and left.

Her brother was driving and I was in the back seat with Ingrid and we were getting to know each other’s tonsils. The scenery began to get darker and more desolate the farther we went, so I asked Ingrid’s brother where the party was. He simply replied, “Está bien,” (it’s okay) as Ingrid poked her tongue into my mouth again. Even though she was a great kisser, I started to get the bad feeling that maybe there was no party. My suspicions were confirmed when we pulled over on the side of the barren road. When Ingrid’s brother got out of the car, came around to my window, and calmly pulled a gun on me, I literally almost pissed my pants.

Ever had a gun pulled on you? Trust me when I say that it’s the coldest, most helpless feeling you could ever have. Your life lies completely in another person’s hands and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

“Get out of the car,” he said in perfectly clear English.

I slowly got out, cursing my stupidity for putting myself in that position. He switched back to Spanish and said, “Take your money and put it on the roof of the car.”

I never carried around much money in case I got robbed, but I gave him what I had. He put the few hundred pesos into his pocket and pointed the gun directly into my face. It was going to end for me on a darkened road in a foreign country. It was an embarrassing way to die and the worst part of it was that nobody even knew where I was. All I could think of was my poor mom.

He stared directly into my eyes and I stared directly into the barrel of his gun. It was so close that I could see the grooves