Who Are Those Masked Men?

Dr. Wagner makes his grand entrance before a Lucha Libre match at the Arena Coliseo in Mexico City. Pro wrestling is Mexico's most-watched sporting event after soccer. (Photos Andrea Bruce Woodall -- The Washington Post)

Jose Montaño sat in the crowd one recent night with his young daughter on his lap. He's a merchant in Tepito, a violent district where daily life can be a stressful grind. He said he comes to the Lucha Libre every week to distract him from his problems and work out his frustrations through the wrestlers in the ring. "I forget everything when I come here," he said.

All around Montaño, people munched on microwave popcorn and pink-frosted doughnuts and swilled sodas and beer as they hollered for Dr. Wagner and Mr. Niebla (Mr. Fog), the two Good Guys left in the ring after Super Porky was carried away.

They also screamed unprintable comments about the Bad Guys' mothers.

That only egged on the growling meanies, who wore black spangles, shiny black jackboots and Alice Cooper eye makeup. They climbed turnbuckles and hurled themselves through the air like falling refrigerators. They landed on (actually, next to) the wobbly Good Guys, who by now were crawling around on the canvas, beaten and powerless without Super Porky.

The bad guys sneered, taunted the crowd and flexed their big biceps.

One man in the crowd, a skinny little guy in his fifties, looked like he was about to dive into the ring after them. A woman yelled so hard she was spitting.

Reyes, the wrestler known as Mascara Año 2000, relishes his role as a Bad Guy.

"I get to hit more, and be hit more -- it's fun," he said in an interview before the match. "I like it that people get to let out their anger by yelling at me and insulting me. People forget their problems when they come here. It's the same for me. When I come in I can be very tense, but afterwards I feel very calm."

He said the hero vs. villain aspect of the sport was a primary draw. "In soap operas it's the same -- it's always good against evil," he said. "If all the wrestlers were the good guys, nobody would care who won."

At 47, Reyes weighs a fit 220 pounds, most of which he seems to carry on his enormous chest. He's been wrestling since 1977, when his brother introduced him to the sport. The brother had gone to Los Angeles as an illegal immigrant and had fallen in love with U.S. professional wrestling. When he came home, he decided to join Lucha Libre and talked Reyes into becoming a wrestler, too.

The other night, Reyes was busy stalking the canvas and drop-kicking the two remaining Good Guys -- including Mr. Niebla, a crowd favorite known outside the ring for his charitable work with disabled children.

"There's sympathy, anger, happiness, sadness . . . it's all the things that the popular classes deal with all the time," Mr. Niebla -- real name, Efrain Hernandez -- said in a pre-match interview, as fathers and children lined up for his autograph. "This is therapy for these people."

Hernandez said he's always been a nervous person, but feels transformed when he becomes Mr. Niebla. "When I put on the mask and step into the ring, it changes my character and my emotions. I look out and I feel the happiness of all the people, and there's so much adrenaline," he said. "All my nervousness is gone, and I am somebody different."

That night in the ring, he became a punching bag, and was further humiliated when the Bad Guys chased him and his partner right out of the ring, up the aisles and into the locker room, abruptly ending the match.

As for Super Porky, whose real name is Jose Alvarado Nieves, he claimed the next day that despite his suffering a sound defeat and a dislocated jaw, it had been a good night.

"It feels great when I make the people happy," he said.