Lucha Libre Showdown At El Museo Del Barrio’s Dia De Los Muertos Event

Ever wonder what a rich man’s Lucha Libre match looks like? We were invited to check out a Lucha Libre exhibition in New York City this weekend at a charity event for El Museo del Barrio. To our astonishment–and slight bewilderment–the two gladiators participating in the match were American wrestlers in disguise. We were allowed a few quick questions with the duo and then asked ourselves: “Is Lucha Libre the next big wave in America’s future? Or did these guys just respond to a Craigslist ad titled: ‘Have a six pack and like wearing masks? We may have the perfect job for you.’” We’re going with the latter. Check out the interview and video after the jump.

• Machochip: Hey fellas! So how long you been Lucha Libre wrestlers?
  

  Antonio Thomas (bad guy) & Romeo Rosselli (good guy): Actually, this is our first time. We’re really American wrestlers, but we’ve always been fascinated with Lucha Libre.

• MC: Virgins ey? So who have you previously worked for?
  

  RR: We’ve wrestled for WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) for a year and were under a contract with the Louisville wrestling circuit for two years.

• MC: Ah yes. The land of fried chicken and baseball bats. Considering Lucha Libre kicks wrestling’s ass, what is it like to wrestle with masks on?
  

  AT: Well it’s definitely easier to get into character when you have a mask. People seem more intrigued by your character because of the disguise.

  RR: Yeah, with the mask, it’s easy to turn into someone else. When people see the mask, they get exicted and give off great energy. We really feed off of that.

• MC: We knew you wrestling dudes were totally into role playing. Would you guys ever consider making a permanent move to Lucha Libre?
  

  RR: Yeah, of course! Wrestling in Mexico is huge, so it’s definitely a possibility. It’s probably even bigger than American wrestling. We would definitely look into wrestling for companies in Mexico.

• MC: Everyone loves the midgets. So whom did you have in mind when you thought about your costumes? Do you know any Lucha Libre wrestlers?
  

  AT: Not really, but we basically just wanted to portray good vs. evil.

  RR: Yeah. I figured I wanted to be the good guy so I decided to choose something with bright colors. We needed to have a bad guy so Antonio wore the black outfit.

• MC: Obvi. So what is it like being the bad guy?
  

  AT: It’s great because the better the bad guy you are, the better we wrestle. The crowd’s reaction is very important. Our job [as the bad guy] is to make people hate you. If we succeed then we’ve done our job.