Where Camp Meets Chokehold: Big-time wrestling gives punch to Mexican neighborhoods. (Travel Intelligence).

The night opens with an all-Japanese lightweight bout, Yashi and Oyanagi vs. Owashi and Iwasa. Nimble and quick Yashi, in multi-colored combat pants and a headband, immediately hurls himself--in a spectacular belly-flop off the top of the corner post--straight at Iwasa, in tight black shorts and boots.

The tiny Lopez Mateos Arena, in the working class Tlalnepantla suburb of Mexico City, echoes with the grunts of the wrestlers and the slap of flesh on flesh. Bodies bounce off the ropes like a human pinball game. Three bouts later, however, the wrestlers can no longer be heard. That's because the crowd is roaring at The Black Family, a wrestling trio that pulls metal baking pans from beneath the ring and smashes them over the heads of their opponents--The Mexican, Oscar Sevilla and The Bullfighter.

The camp and melodrama of this Wednesday night fight is promoted by Mexico's biggest wrestling organization, Asistencia, Asesoria y Administracion de Espectaculos, better known as AAA. The bouts are typical of hundreds of fights that unfold across the country every week in venues ranging in capacity from more than 40,000 to the 2,000-spectator Lopez Mateos. The bizarre spectacle of professional wrestling, frequently televised, is reportedly second only to soccer in capturing local crowds' fascination.

Wrestling, or lucha libre, first surfaced in Mexico during the French intervention in 1863, when European wrestlers drew crowds' attention. Over the following 70 years U.S., Italian and Irish wrestlers, among others, toured Mexico. But it was not until 1933 that tax collector Salvador Lutteroth founded the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre and trained a new generation of Mexican combatants. The initiative sparked a lively industry that has permeated local culture.

After two decades of steady growth, demand became such that Lutteroth was forced to tear down his ramshackle 5,000-person Arena Mexico in the center of the capital and erect a 17,000-seater monster bearing the same name. The wrestling mania held steady for four more decades but, by the early 1990s, the Consejo Mundial's events had become outdated and staid. The breakaway AAA soon took over the spotlight, luring higher ticket sales with its aping of U.S. professional wrestling, complete with scantily clad ring girls.

Technique in Mexico is now among the best in the world, according to the Canadian Vampire, an amiable black-belt from Toronto. At 113 kilos (250 pounds) and 1.9 meters (6-foot-3), he is one of the Consejo's biggest stars. And he is one of the biggest cheerleaders of Mexico's wrestling tradition.

"They can fight. They can wrestle," he says as he puts the finishing touches on his zombie makeup before going out to do battle in Arena Mexico's Friday night bill. "There are a lot more acrobatics. This is the place to learn."

Asked if the fights are fake, Canadian Vampire lists his injuries--including breaking his neck three times--and adds laconically: "I wish someone had told me. I've been killing myself trying to win for the last 10 years.

Fan magnet. Gauging the current popularity of lucha libre is difficult. The Consejo Mundial will not reveal box office statistics. The AAA says it sells around 50,000 tickets a month, claiming only soccer has more live spectators. According to Televisa, the network which airs both organizations' fights, ratings are around seven points, and that's respectable for non-prime time screenings that can last around three hours.

But seeing it live is what it is all about, according to Gabriela Velazquez, a former reporter for magazines Super Lucha and Lucha 2000. "The spectators shout at the wrestlers and they actually reply," she says. "People get involved. That doesn't happen in football or bullfighting."

In Mexico, ever since middleweight champion Santo appeared masked, caped and bare-chested in a string of films in the 1950s and 1960s, lucha libre has never looked back, (Improbably Santo based his ring persona on Simon Templar, the cat burglar protagonist in series of British books that became movies, as well as The Saint television series starring Roger Moore.)

Wrestling even pushed irreverently onto the political scene when an activist wearing wrestler-style cape and mask Superbarrio, turning up to demonstrate with Mexico City's underclass during the 1980s and 1990s. So powerful is the lucha libre phenomenon that it has been scrutinized by Mexico's cultural commentators. Author Carlos Monsivais labels it a "precise mix of classical tragedy, circus, Olympic sport, comedy, variety theatre and work catharsis."

Back at the Arena Lopez Mateos, the night's top-billed fight gets under way: Two Faces, Two Faces Junior and Holy Mask vs. Cybernetic, Psychosis and Evil Mask. Although the fight has started, the action is unfolding everywhere but in the ring. The wrestlers, in standard Mexican wrestling garb with masks, tights and bared barrel-chests, roam through the crowd throwing chairs at each other, swapping headlocks and trading loud but ineffectual open-handed blows. Fans cheer, pat the passing wrestlers on the back, pose quickly for snatched pictures next to their heroes and, occasionally, throw harmless plastic beer glasses at the combatants. Nowhere else in Mexico will you see a peaceful crowd more animated than this.