Meet Cassandro, the Gay Wrestler Who Changed Mexico's Lucha Libre Arielle Castillo, Jesse Swinger and Hector Batista - Fusion
go to original October 17, 2014

Masked, hulking luchadores play an essential role in Mexican pop culture. Icon wrestling legends “El Santo” and “Blue Demon” vaulted to real-life superhero status, immortalized in comic books and celebrated in death as quasi-saints.

But there’s another, lesser-celebrated Mexican wrestling figure that is far more colorful and indisputably more complex: “El Exotico.”

Sometimes described erroneously as drag queens, wrestlers who assume the character known for his “exotic” ways occupy a different kind of gendered space. Think burly, athletic men who kick ass in shiny bathing suits, heavy-handed makeup, and stockings. It’s glamour-meets-smackdown.

At 44, “Cassandro,” born Saul Armendariz, is the leader of the pack. Each of his victories during 26 years of pinning men to the canvas has been hard-fought in a macho culture, inside and outside the ring.

“They were like, ‘Kill the f***ot! Ese es puto!” he says, trying to smile through the painful memory of his first audiences.

Cassandro’s life mission is to break down barriers, as a star of lucha libre but also as a role model for the character of exotico.

“I am going to dignify the name of the exoticos,” he says.

Read the rest at Fusion

Photo: Saul Armendariz

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