Masked wrestlers flipped, flew and body-slammed their way across a makeshift ring inside the Museum of Latin American Art's sculpture garden on Sept. 26, drawing a crowd to Long Beach for a night of lucha libre. The matches were the centerpiece of a three-day festival the museum threw to mark its 30th anniversary, running from Friday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 27.
The Long Beach Post described plans to reconfigure the museum's Robert Gumbiner Sculpture Garden into a temporary ring. The Saturday lineup included wrestlers El Cumbias, Kensei, Destiny, Rayo Star, El Muerto, Último Príncipe and Red Spider Rudo, with Mercurio Jr. greeting the crowd and Mariachi Loco and Romeo helping pump up the energy in the stands. The Long Beach Current reported that four matches took place that evening.
A Weekend Built Around Mexico's Masked Icons
Lucha libre, the fast-paced, acrobatic wrestling style long associated with Mexico's intricately masked performers, formed the throughline of the entire weekend's programming. MOLAA described Saturday's event as an unforgettable evening filled with high-flying action, colorful masks, and the vibrant spirit of one of Latin America's most beloved cultural traditions, according to a press release cited by the Press-Telegram. Live music from La Nueva Ola de Cumbia ran alongside the matches as part of the band's own nod to the museum's 30th anniversary, with the Saturday schedule, per MOLAA's official event page, running from 3:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
The celebration didn't start with the wrestling, though. Friday night kicked off the festival with the launch of “Luchadores Versus Everything,” a book by Viviana Garcia Besne, Jeffrey Everett and Kevin Kleinrock, described by the museum as internationally acclaimed. That opening reception also featured a live installation of rare, historic “El Santo” film trailers playing throughout the evening.
Food, Film and a Batwoman Horror Flick Close Out the Run
By Sunday, the festival shifted gears again. Programming that day centered on a Lucha Libre Expo running from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., alongside film screenings, a marketplace and what organizers billed as special meet-and-greets with wrestlers. The day's screenings paired the 2024 short film “El Luchador” with “La Mujer Murciélago,” a 1968 Mexican film in which a crime-fighting Batwoman takes on a mad scientist who kidnaps and experiments on wrestlers to create a monster — a campy artifact from an era when lucha libre and horror cinema frequently collided on Mexican screens.
Across all three days, the festival wove in art workshops, panel discussions and a marketplace alongside the headline wrestling and film programming, according to Long Beach Current. The outlet reported that the anniversary event offered live music, local food trucks and drinks throughout the evening, rounding out an expo-style atmosphere that drew families and lucha libre devotees alike into the museum's outdoor space.
Port and County Backing Helped Bring the Spectacle to Life
The three-day celebration was sponsored by the Port of Long Beach and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, according to MOLAA's event listing, lending institutional weight to a festival that blended fine-art programming with the populist spectacle of masked wrestling. Photographer Gil Castro-Petres documented Saturday's live matches, capturing a scene that fused the museum's gallery walls with the chaos of a wrestling ring — a combination that, for one sold-out night, turned Long Beach's art museum into a lucha libre arena.
