* After the matches, shopping for luchador máscaras outside.
And for the main event, we watched Mistico and Marco Corleone fight valiantly but fall in the end to Atlantis and his crew of rudos, Friday night at the big and sleek Arena Mexico, the biggest lucha libre venue in the city. The other highlight of the night? Enjoying the antics of decidedly effete Maximo, the crowd-pleasing "exotic" wrestler who sometimes throws his opponents off with an aggressive wet kiss.
Going to the luchas in D.F. brought back memories. As kitschy-trendy as lucha libre has gotten on an international level, it remains at its core an affordable family entertainment for Mexicans up and down the country and across generations. We used to go to the luchas in Tijuana when we were little. I remember the piles of little plastic luchadores we'd collect, and the miniature wooden rings that came with them, and the excitement inside and outside the arena on Friday nights ... and the wrestler's moves that we'd try inevitably to recreate at home.
* The CMLL is lucha libre's corporate professional parent. Read more about its history here.