When it comes to the celebration of Mexican customs, luchador Magno can’t think of a better pairing than Día de los Muertos and lucha libre.
“I was born in Guadalupe, Mexico, but they brought me over to El Paso, Texas, when I was a little kid, so for me, Día de los Muertos has been more of a tradition,” Magno said during a recent phone interview. Luchador Magno, alongside lucha libre wrestlers Los Chupacabras, Misterioso Jr., La Fantasma de Paquita (and her ghostly chancla), Dirty Sanchez, and more will enter the ring at the Fox Theater Pomona on Saturday, Nov. 8.
For the first time in 23 years, Lucha VaVoom is hosting a Día de los Muertos event on the heels of moving from the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles to its new home in Pomona.
Like several of the shows under the Lucha VaVoom banner, the Día de los Muertos event will venture beyond lucha libre matches, incorporating burlesque dancers, aerialists, stand-up comics, a surprise celebrity guest host, and performances by Los Angeles-based Cumbia band Poco Pocho and La Puente-based traditional Aztec dance group Danza Azteca Tonatiuh.
The show will also coincide with Downtown Pomona’s Día de los Muertos Festival, kicking off in the evening.
“Having a show like this in the Pomona area and in Los Angeles is amazing because you’ve got so many different people from Latin America, so hopefully we can get it super packed for our debut there,” Magno said.
For producer Liz Fairbairn, finding a new venue to house wrestling events through her production company, Lucha VaVoom de la Liz, which runs recurring shows around holidays, including Halloween and Valentine’s Day, was no small feat after the closure of the Mayan Theater in September. In a phone interview, Fairbairn said she received several calls from neighboring Downtown Los Angeles venues offering to host her lucha libre events, but that the Fox Theater Pomona aligned most closely with her values.
“We are really excited about our partnership with the Fox, and it’s a direction that follows my heart,” Fairbairn said. “It’s beautiful, owned and run by a Latino family, newly renovated, and has a very similar layout to the Mayan. Pomona is also just a really cool little town that explodes with creativity.”
Fairbairn, the co-producer and co-founder of Lucha VaVoom since 2002, has built a variety show that has become one of Los Angeles’ longest-running events, attracting Hollywood A-listers to watch masked wrestlers battle it out in character-driven matches alongside burlesque artists who dazzle crowds in between fights. Some of those celebrity guests have included Drew Carey, Andy Richter, Dana Gould, Jack Black, Eric Idle, Fred Armisen, Patton Oswalt, Morrissey, Billy Corgan, Sacha Baron Cohen, Demi Moore, Whitney Cummings, Danny Trejo and Ronda Rousey.
In February 2022, the company reemerged out of the COVID-19 pandemic, with Fairbairn (and Fairbairn alone) curating, producing, directing, and financing nearly 20 of the company’s shows through 2023, including Lucha VaVoom’s year-long 20th anniversary, and the launch of its Las Vegas residency at the House of Blues inside Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino. After going at it solo for a few years, she decided to break off and start her own production company, and last year began doing business as Lucha VaVoom de La Liz.
Although she’s not Latina, Fairbairn said she’s “very white but Mexicana en mi corazón (Mexican at heart)” and is grateful for the support of the Latino community, which has come out to support Lucha VaVoom for more than two decades.
Fairbairn’s love of the sport goes way back. She first became enamored of lucha libre after attending shows in Mexico and Baja California with her ex-boyfriend, a wrestler known as El Gringo Loco. She remembers the luchadors pulling up in lowriders to greet fans and sign autographs at the shows she would frequent in Tijuana. She started pushing her circle of friends to check out the events.
Later, the idea came: to bring lucha libre closer to Latino communities in the U.S. and, ultimately, to a broader audience at international festivals in Japan and Australia. She got to work producing the events, and recreating the magic — luchadores now arrive at each Lucha VaVoom show in lowriders.
“It was so cool how the wrestlers out there would get dropped off, get out with their mask on, and sign autographs on their way into the venue,” she said. “I thought it was really cool, and I wanted to try to find a way to spin it and use it here too.”
In addition to bringing over the lowriders for the luchadores, she’s also invested in giving burlesque performers from Latin America a chance to showcase their skills. In addition to dancers from Australia, London and Hawaii, this year’s show features Lady Blue, a director, teacher, and burlesque performer for the Tijuana-based company Di Notte Nel Cabaret and Bucafest, Tijuana’s first burlesque and cabaret festival. It will also be the debut of multidisciplinary artist, burlesque performer, and costume designer Miss Betty Pain from Mexico City, who has a pyro-inspired show planned to celebrate Día de los Muertos.
As for the holiday-themed shows, like Lucha VaVoom’s Day of the Dead celebration, Fairbairn said she doesn’t dictate specifics to her team. Aside from establishing a central theme, the event producer gives performers complete control over how they interpret and incorporate it into the show.
Now that the lucha libre-led event has a new home, she adds that it’s given her and her team a new burst of inspiration for next year’s events.
“We are getting a little bit more creative by exploring new audiences and themes,” she said. “I think people are going to get used to going to Pomona, the way people from there were used to Downtown LA. We couldn’t imagine a better new home than the Fox Theater Pomona. It’s the perfect stage for the next chapter of Lucha Vavoom de la Liz.”
Lucha VaVoom de la Liz presents: Día de los Muertos
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8.
Where: The Fox Theater Pomona, 301 S Garey Ave., Pomona.
Information: The show is 21-and-older. $60.90-$127.85 at luchavavoomdelaliz.com.