‘Cassandro the Exotico’ details a life in and out of wrestling ring
“Cassandro the Exotico” opens with footage of its titular star getting ready backstage. We see him applying eye makeup and lashes, meticulously blowdrying and fluffing his hair, lacing up a pair of white and gold boots. Cassandro is an a specific breed of Mexican wrestler who performs in drag, usually playing up crude gay stereotypes and often the butt of jokes The “Liberace of lucha libre,” as he’s known, marches out to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” resplendent in a flowing train inspired by Princess Diana. But once he’s in the ring, Cassandro (whose real name is Saúl Armendáriz) truly blossoms. He is no one’s punching bag — or punchline. He grounds the
trope in athleticism and bravado, mercilessly battering his opponents, diving through the ropes of a ring and jumping from balconies and rafters.
But “Cassandro the Exotico,” playing Thursday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as part of the QFest LGBTQ film festival, is less a story about wrestling and more one about resilience,
acceptance and freedom. Director Marie Losier used 16 mm film, giving it an intimate, vintage feel. She gets Cassandro to open up about childhood abuse, drug and alcohol addictions and his touching relationship with his father.
The documentary premiered in May 2018 at Cannes, and Cassandro has since been traveling the world with it. He’ll appear at Thursday’s MFAH screening.
“What Marie did is she helped me open up my
“I was like, ‘Oh, boy. What a great feeling.’ That night, I did not only change the Mexican sport, I changed the Mexican culture.” — Cassandro the Exotico
heart and my soul to talk about issues. It was sometimes very hard to do, talking to the camera, but we had to give it the power that the film needed,” Cassandro says. “This man in Peru, he told me, ‘Thank you for the film and your story with your father. I think tonight I’m gonna look at my children differently and just accept them as they are.’ That hit home for me.”
Cassandro split his time growing up between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where he picked up an early love for the showmanship — and men, he says with a laugh in the documentary — of
His own career began as a more routine masked wrestler, but he quickly found a home as an
In 1992, he won the Universal Wrestling Association World Lightweight Championship, becoming the first to hold a championship belt in UWA history. It was a hard-earned bit of respect. “I was like, ‘Oh, boy. What a great feeling,’ ” Cassandro says. “That night, I did not only change the Mexican sport, I changed the Mexican culture.”
Tough road
To call Cassandro a pioneer is not an understatement. Being openly gay, even today, can be a momentous obstacle. But doing it as a wrestler in makeup and pink spandex in a world built on macho and alpha stereotypes? It must have sometimes felt impossible.
Wrestler Darren Young only came out in 2013. Football player Michael Sam came out the same year and has since retired from football. No baseball player has ever come out publicly while actively on a team.
“It was always 10 times harder, from the first day that I went to my first training class. I knew that I had to push myself. I was working two times, three times harder than the other guys,” Cassandro says. “It’s always gonna be hard. It has just become easier for me because I know how to deal with stuff. But when you’re new and you’re trying to be somebody, it’s really hard when people are giving you all this negativity. It messes with you.”
Now 49 years old, Cassandro is still flying high in matches. But the film finds him pondering retirement as his body gives out after years of wear and tear. He’s been hospitalized eight times for concussions, endured multiple surgeries and taken blows to his head, back and torso.
Still loving his job
Today, he balances appearances and El Paso home life (“This morning I woke up very early, I did the house, I did the emails”) with sweat lodges and sun dance ceremonies, which include fasting in the desert. We see him engaging in these practices in the film.
And he still loves his job, he says on camera, “’cause I’m a badass.”
“I was just at Pride in Chicago where I got to meet transgender people from all over the world who wrestled. It was really cool, man. Everybody was being themselves, and that’s the difference from 31 years ago when I couldn’t be myself when I started,” he says.
“Today, I walk with my head straight up. I don’t look at the floor anymore. The courage was always there, I just never knew. I know now that if I wouldn’t have become a wrestler, I would have probably killed myself. But in wrestling, I learned a lot about myself. I didn’t even know I could fly. Screw gravity. I can fly.”