Cholita wrestling – The tall

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Cholita wrestling – The tall

There are single mothers who have to work hard. There are also some who are willing to endure injuries and blows to earn a living.. And yet, in Bolivia, the cholitas who fight 4900 meters high they say they are fighting in the sky.

Jennifer is bad. That's why everyone applauds when they push her to the ground, and they soften it with kicks, and they twist his throat, and they drag her pulling the braids of her chola hairstyle. While they beat her, the public of the La Ceja Multifunctional Center in El Alto, in Bolivia, throws plastic bottles at him, chicken bones and soda caps. His face is suffering. She is angry and in pain. It's bad, but proud. Jennifer draws the last of her strength, He pushes his rival and trips him. Now, she dominates the situation. He jumps on his opponent's face and then bends his arm until it cracks.. Then Jennifer climbs the ropes in the corner, He raises his arms as if trying to catch the crowd's booing against him., He looks at his rival lying on the canvas and starts flying.

fly, and her typical Aymara chola dress flutters in the air.
fly, and his eyes are fixed on that victim on whom he will drop all his weight.
fly, while the flashes of the gringo tourists in the front row explode.
fly, savoring the revenge of the bad guys.
fly, like a heavy eagle losing height.

fly, and half a second before landing, his rival moves a few centimeters.

Jennifer lands with her face on the canvas. The blow upon touching the ground is dry, enough to break the ribs of anyone not trained in wrestling. The audience laughs at her misfortune while she, the bad thing about this live movie, She writhes as if she had just been run over.. Minutes later, after receiving new kicks and new fist blows and new locks that twist his arms, the woman will receive the count of one and two and three and will have lost the fight. He will get out of the ring with crazy cries! ¡loca! ¡loca! And the screams won't stop until he enters the dressing room: ¡loca! ¡loca! ¡loca!

—They also shout at me on the street. I live here, in El Alto, and when I go down the street they tell me crazy! —comments. Her fighter name is Jennifer Dos Caras, although now she speaks like Ana María, his true identity.

We are in the dressing room area of ​​the El Alto Multifunctional, a Bolivian city neighboring La Paz, with a million inhabitants 4900 meters high. According to everyone here, The Multifunctional is the highest gym in the world. “We are close to heaven”, says the announcer who announces the fights. The enclosure, where lame dogs walk and there are no bathrooms, it was once a church. During the weekdays basketball and indoor soccer are played here., Sometimes there are political events and every Sunday a new day of wrestling takes place.: a show that, thanks to the fighting cholitas, appears in travel guides and is filled with foreign tourists.

—Do they really hit each other??

-Of course. We all have many injuries here., and that's why we train so much. “I have had several burns from the fight,” says Jennifer., and lifts his sleeves to show me several scars on both forearms..

Jennifer Two-Face is tough, even when she speaks like Ana María. However, The argument by which she says that she likes to be bad demonstrates her goodness:

—The public vents, he breaks free insulting me. I like to be bad because it helps the spectators to have a catharsis.. I like to provoke them, for them to free themselves. A while ago I was good, a season, but I was bored.

Jennifer has two children, one of 14 and one of 7. Sometimes they come to see her, but she doesn't like it. In her house there is a collection of photos of the mother flying with her cholita dress.. He lives exclusively from the fight, charge some 60 dollars per fight, and she keeps the house. She is single and does not see the father of her children.:

"I'm alone and bad," and she laughs..

We have become accustomed to the fact that in Latin America everything is fought. We have learned that there is no true cause, if we are not willing to fight for it. In times of economic crisis, many political demonstrations in the region end with the choir: “Die fighting, hungry or shitting!”.

In the El Alto area, where the cholitas fly before falling to the canvas, most of the walls are painted with phrases that put the words together “Evo” y “Lucha”. They announce that the president of Bolivia is fighting against poverty, fighting foreign abuse, fighting illiteracy. “We will not stop fighting”, says Evo Morales on the day he assumes his second consecutive term as head of state. The fight on everyone's lips. The fight as part of everyday life, in a Latin America with 1200 daily deaths from urban violence. The fight as part of the speech. Fighting as something serious, never stops laughing. The opposite of today's fight in the Multifunctional of El Alto, where the fighters always make the audience burst into laughter.

Compared to reality, ring wrestlers look like a battery operated cartoon. like a toy. Just remember Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk's wrestling novel, made into a film by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt. In a moment, one of the fighters goes to the hospital due to severe pain. He tells the doctor to treat him quickly, who is suffering. The doctor answers: “Do you want to see real suffering? Visit the testicular cancer ward. That's pain”.

Nobody takes seriously the real pains of ring fighters. Nor that of the famous cholitas of the Bolivian struggle.

Elizabeth is a good cholita. Within the world of Bolivian wrestling there are the tacticians and the rude ones.. The fighters whose profile is that of being bad are the rude ones. Elizabeth, instead, she is a tactical cholita.

Elizabeth goes on stage wearing a long colorful skirt and a gray chola hat. The audience applauds her and she salutes with the manner of a good fighter.. The announcer of the evening hands him the microphone, and she greets a girl from the audience who is having a birthday. The celebrated, that has no more than 10 years and is in the company of his brothers, parents and grandmother, her name is Alice. Many complete families come to Bolivian wrestling, like Alice's.

—My girl, in addition to greeting you on your birthday, I want to tell you to study. May you never stop studying, so that things go well for you in life. Besides, don't fight with your parents, who love you very much. “God bless you,” Elizabeth tells him., from the ring, and the entire audience applauds this good cholita.

To get to fight on Sunday, the feisty cholitas have gone through a whole week of preparation. On Mondays there is rest. Tuesdays are physical preparation, with weights, jogging and abs. Wednesdays are rest. Thursdays are for practices in the ring. Fridays are rest. Saturdays are the dress rehearsal for the big day, on sunday, hoy.

Elizabeth is thick and agile, like all. He jumps in front of his rival until he knocks him down on the canvas. Then run to the ropes, pounces on them as if they were an elastic band, and she shoots out with her entire dress flapping until she collides with her opponent..

—I like that so many foreigners come.. This shows that what we offer is of great quality.. I've been doing this for five years, and the truth is that I am very happy,” says Elizabeth outside the ring., after an easy win. while talking, the children of El Alto come up to hug her, to touch her, to take photos.

Although every fight Sunday there are about ten fights, most with men in the ring, It is the cholitas who have changed the face of Bolivian wrestling. In some video stands at the El Alto fair, a paradise of stolen and pirated merchandise, They sell the legendary program El show de Cristina de Junio 2008: when several of them were on the set with Cristina Saralegui. For many, that was the beginning of the change. The beginning of the arrival of European photographers and documentary filmmakers, Japanese and American. and from there, the development of the tourism industry in La Paz, that fills buses with tourists and seats them next to the ring.

In the front row, to see in detail and close to the sky these cholitas who fly while fighting for a better life.

Carmen Rosa is good and she is lying on the floor, below the ring, when they break a wooden box on his head. The public screams, stroke, but the referee of the fight does nothing to stop the attack.. The cholita Carmen Rosa, one of the most legendary competitors of Bolivian cachacascanism, Now he is fighting with 'la Fiera': a fat man weighing more than a hundred kilos and a tight white suit. For a while now, as striking as the fights between cholitas, They are fights between a man and a woman. The fat man nicknamed 'la Fiera', who promises to have no compassion, he gets another box with which to hit his victim's head. Some tourists are scared. They take photos in amazement while, a few meters, 'the Fair’ The tight suit hits a cholita loved by the public with blunt objects.

-Fagot! Fagot! mess with a man! —they shout at him from all sides of the stadium. The children, the parents, the grandparents, tourists.

Gina Gray, 24 years, born in Sacramento, He studied anthropology at UCLA and has been traveling through Bolivia for a month. He came to watch wrestling as part of the must-see tours sold by La Paz tourism agencies.. Pay 40 dollars for a package that includes transfer, entry to the Multifunctional, a glass of drink, a bag of popcorn, two tickets to go to a bathroom outside the enclosure and a miniature craft from a cholita. Next to her there are about twenty young gringos, everyone in the front row, who wear Bolivian hats and handmade backpacks. Gina had told me, with a Spanish with a Californian English accent, that he thought it was funny to watch the show. Before the fights she looked smiling. I took photos of Bolivian children and grandmothers in chola dresses sitting in the audience. However, suddenly, everything seems to have changed. While the fat man in white hits Carmen Rosa's head, Gina gets angry and joins in the shouting.:

-Fagot! Fagot!

The referee stops the beating and forces the two fighters to get into the ring. Once up, Carmen Rosa renews her strength, tomb to 'la Fiera’ and begins to strangle his right ankle. Everything turns around in a few minutes. The public cheers her, as she climbs the ropes before jumping. From above he raises his arms and everyone, including Gina and her friends, They encourage her with applause and cheers. Carmen Rosa, transformed into an avenger of men's violence against women, he pushes himself with all his strength and flies.

fly, and her typical Aymara chola dress flutters in the air.
fly, still with the marks of the broken drawer on his head.
fly, while the public applauds her enthusiastically, like the necessary heroin.
fly, savoring the revenge of the good guys.
fly, and 'the beast’ can't move when she lands.

Carmen Rosa drops her entire heavy body on the fat fighter's chest. Victory is followed by cheers! that seem to tear down this small stadium that was once a church and that is so close to heaven, a 4.900 meters high. Tourists in the front row take photos, while the families in the popular stands never tire of applauding.

The show of the fighting cholitas seems to be in good health. Everyone knows that, thanks to them, Bolivian wrestling has been able to stand out against powerful Latin American industries such as Mexican wrestling or Argentine wrestling.. Such is the success, that more than one declares himself the inventor of the phenomenon.

Juan Mamani, known as 'the Gypsy’ and responsible for the show, He announces himself as the inventor of such a lucrative variant of wrestling: the fighting cholitas. However, shortly after the appearance of these long-dressed fighters, many of them went to work with the company directed by Benjamín Simonini, known by his tough fighter name 'Kid Simonini'.

Beyond disputes between company owners, There is a fighter who has proof that everything was his invention. His name is Edgar Zabala, although in the world of Bolivian wrestling he is known as 'Comandante Zabala'. Edgar has 45 years, a hairdo with gel and a broken nose in several places. It takes more than 25 years in the environment and came to the wrestling ring after a stint in boxing. Competed in the fly category, he dreamed of boxing a world final, and there they began to break his septum.

—The first time there was a fighting cholita, “It was me,” he says., serious, dressed in the military suit with which in a while he will compete as 'Commander Zabala'.

He says it was about ten years ago., and that it occurred to him to go out to the ring dressed as a chola as a joke. As part of the fun side that wrestling should always have. What he didn't know, no less the head of the company, It was the success that was going to have seeing cholitas on stage. Quickly, 'the Gypsy’ began recruiting women who were willing to fly over the ring and land on their ribs. More than 50. Nowadays, there are several on the waiting list, to be the future Carmen Rosa: the woman who overcame being hit in the head by a box, and was able to knock down his heavy rival amidst the cheers of a full stadium.

When one arrives in La Paz, It is common to meet cholitas on the street., how do you tell them “lovingly” to indigenous women wearing their traditional attire. The cholas, like many descendants of the Aymaras, They are the symbol of the discrimination to which indigenous people and peasants have been subjected in Bolivia.. However, This clothing is also a sign of prestige typical of those who maintain the values ​​of an ancient culture.. When one goes up to El Alto, the presence of the cholitas becomes much more evident.

From El Alto, where is the Multifunctional of wrestling, You get a panoramic and almost complete view of the city of La Paz. Down there is the capital, the big buildings, the government palace and the hotels where tourists stay. Here, instead, the streets are dirt, People survive with street trading and with the slightest carelessness you can become a victim of robbery.. El Alto is considered a red zone, in which you have to be attentive. However, The fame of the people of El Alto has more to do with fighting than with petty thefts.

It was the people of El Alto who began the popular revolt that ended with the resignation of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, previous step to President Carlos Mesa, predecessor of the arrival of Evo Morales to power.

—El Alto is a bastion of Evo. Here is the red zone, but Evo can walk around here without custody and no one would do anything to him,” Alberto Medrano tells me., a journalist from El Alto, great promoter of Bolivian wrestling.

The day of combat ends after nine at night. The cold of the almost 5000 meters high has been dropped. Tourists have gotten on the buses to go down to La Paz, while the families of El Alto walk home. Carmen Rosa, one of the most legendary fighters, He tells me that tomorrow is the day of rest and he will be with his children.. She tells me that she is a working woman, that the titans of the ring have helped him have a better life, but it's not like I earn a lot of money. He says that, anyway, He has other occupations because he has a family and life is a struggle.. He says that the strongest blows on Sunday last until Tuesday. And he says that tonight, before falling asleep, he will review his best pirouettes in his head.

Surely Carmen Rosa, the woman who came down from the ring sweaty and beaten, she will sleep late and tired. Y, likely, relive the moment when you climb the ropes. Below the ring the public is crazy and applauds her with rage. Gina, the anthropologist, yells at him, Faggot!! to 'la Fiera’ and cheer for the cholita. At that moment she opens her arms, look at your rival, gives a boost and flies.

fly, with her cholita dress in the wind.
fly, knowing that in her life she has always felt like a fighter.
fly, no desire to land.

By: JUAN PABLO MENESES / www.soho.com.co

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