La Guerra/Lucha POWER presents SANGREMANIA: Nights 1&2!

Choque was dead, to begin with.

His funeral was a rowdy and well-attended affair that at times more closely resembled a carnival. At least half the mourners wore masks, and most of the other half were scantily clad women. Nobody’d bothered to wear a suit, or even the color black.

Rudos lined up to pay their respects. The tecnicos were there just to make sure the son of a bitch was actually dead. The closed casket did nothing to put their minds at ease.

In life, Choque had been the most feared rudo in the entire business, a large, lumbering colossus known to tear tecnicos limb from limb. In an illustrious career spanning half a century, he not once ever even hinted at the possibility of a face turn, so dastardly and downright evil was he. He hadn’t lost a single match throughout the 1970s, not once that entire decade. He’d held more titles than could properly be kept count of, and ended his career on a thousand-day reign. It seemed impossible to all in the room that he could ever be pinned for more than two slaps of the mat, much less dead.

The eulogy, delivered by the dead man’s son, El Hijo de Choque, was unusual to say the least. A luchador enmascarado following in the footsteps of his father, El Hijo de Choque opted to enter the room with his entrance theme blaring. He was shirtless. Tecnicos in the pews booed and hissed. As El Hijo de Choque climbed onto the stage, a Tecate can whizzed past his head and bounced off of a large framed portrait of his father on an easel, but nobody seemed to find the act particularly disrespectful. A scuffle broke out in the aisle and its participants were quickly pulled apart. El Hijo de Choque egged on his detractors for several minutes with a series of extremely rude gestures, until a tiny, hunched-over old lady in black - his abuela - took to the stage and whispered into his ear to remind him that his father’s funeral was at hand.

El Hijo de Choque composed himself and stepped up to the mic. He cleared his throat. Deafening feedback roared from the PA. The audience flinched. He lead the group in solemn prayer, then spoke a few kind words about his father. It was all very dull and dry until he plunged his hands down the front of his pants and began to fish around for something.

From somewhere deep down in his tights, El Hijo de Choque dramatically pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper and held it high above his head for all to see. Attendees cocked eyebrows quizzically and murmured amongst themselves. Why was he waving that cocktail napkin around and how long has he been carrying that thing around in there?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” El Hijo de Choque growled into the microphone. “This small square of paper that I hold aloft here in my right hand is nothing less than the last will and testament of none other than The Unmistakable, The Unbreakable, The Unbeatable, The Undefeatable… CHOQUE!”

The crowd clucked excitedly. Half of them took to their feet; just the rudos.

“My father!” El Hijo de Choque added emphatically, and everyone rose, clapping and whistling.

The raucous ovation quickly became an insistent chant, everyone in the room all in unison. READ IT! READ IT! READ IT! Even El Hijo de Choque himself joined the chant momentarily, before finally getting around to reading it.

“I, The Unmistakable, The Unbreakable, The Unbeatable, The Undefeatable CHOQUE, leave all my earthly possessions to my wife and seven sons, with one exception. My mask, I leave to the sacred sport of lucha libre.”

The crowd gasped. Did that mean Choque was inside that coffin… without a mask on? He’d retired having never lost his mask in a lucha de apuesta. No one outside his immediate family had ever seen his face.

El Hijo de Choque confirmed that his father was indeed maskless in the casket when he went digging around inside his tights once again. He yanked out the mask and held it high over his head. It was tattered and torn, frayed and discolored. There was such a strong odor attached to it, people in the first few rows could smell the decades of sweat and saliva and blood that saturated the fabric. Or at least that’s what they hoped they were smelling.

Every luchador in attendance, even Choque’s most trusted allies and closest confidants, salivated at the sight of that stinky old mask. In lucha libre culture, masks are considered sacred objects, imbued with certain supernatural powers. The mask of the greatest luchador to have ever lived might as well have been the Holy Grail. Their minds reeled, imagining what immense and extraordinary powers that mask might bestow upon whomever possessed it.

El Hijo de Choque continued to read. His old man had managed to fit a fair bit of text onto that teeny tiny napkin.

“In my lifetime, I was the most dominant wrestler to have ever set foot in the squared circle. The greatest luchador who ever lived. In my absence from this world, I wish for my mask to be given to whomever is still the greatest luchador left among the living.”

The crowd roared. Muscular men in masks jumped excitedly onto their chairs. They shook raised fists triumphantly, ran up and down the aisles, rolled around on the floor. Everyone knew what was coming next, and El Hijo de Choque gave it all the flourish it deserved, delivering the final lines of the letter in a snarling, spitting bellow.

“I know of only one way to determine who is indeed the greatest luchador left living. A battle of blood! Una guerra de Sangre! Un… TORNEOOOOOOOOOO!”