El Pais has one of the better women’s wrestling pieces I’ve read lately. The usual arc of these “they wouldn’t let women wrestle in Mexico, then they would but were very sexist, and now we’ve made some real progress” to paint a rosy picture. This piece has some of that, but it also acknowledges that the struggle isn’t just against the outside world but against each other. Stephanie Vaquer’s comments got (poorly) aggregated over the weekend, with many people critical of Vaquer for saying CMLL people treated her harshly in her first year. In this article, legendary luchadora Lola Gonzalez talks about being treated terribly by the established women at the time – and then the following paragraph is Lady Apache talking about how Lola Gonzalez (and other stars of that time) tried her terribly when she was breaking into wrestling. The author notes that many of the luchadoras talked to had similar stories and refers to it as a hazing. To me, it’s a cycle of disrespect, women getting treated horribly on the way in, who can’t stop themselves from doing the same to those who follow them. Many luchadoras note throughout the article how little they get along. Hera says she only trusts her family and Persephone. Skadi says she only trusts Marcela and Kira. Those are things I’d be more concerned with my wrestlers saying out loud than whatever people no longer in CMLL say if I was running CMLL.
The El Pais article also mentions both Lola Gonzalez and Lady Apache suffering physical abuse from their spouses. Fishman hitting Lola Gonzalez has come up in other profiles of her and is well known, though it tends to be politely ignored in recollections of Fishman. I don’t recall hearing the Electroshock/Lady Apache story before; she says he was upset she was more over than him and took it out on her.
