Showing up to the Arenas Sports Center, 1110 N.W. 2nd, a bit early, I walked over to the recently put-together wrestling ring, running my fingers along the dark mat; somewhat smaller than on television, with a hard floor that reverberates loudly to the touch, the four metal posts in each corner tie together the yellow ropes harshly—they’re pulled tight enough to snap your neck if you were to run into them hard enough.
Plenty of necks—as well as many other tender parts of the body—were in choreographed danger that Friday night as the absolutely puro wrestling of OKC Lucha Libre took to the ring, showcasing not only the best combatants from the Oklahoma scene, but star athletes from all over Mexico, coming together in a storm of crowd-pleasing violence that was dubbed, on the posters, the “Tornado de Luchadors.”