Wrestlers that wear masks have always been peppered with an air of mystery and exoticism. A good masked gimmick has the fans in attendance wondering just who it is under there and watching intently for any kind of visual clues as to the wearers identity. In fact, many fans pay closer attention to a masked wrestler than they do to an un-masked one, which is just one way that masks are useful in pro wrestling. A mask is also useful to promoters that are planning to job out an established star to an upcoming one, without harming the losing wrestlers reputation. Simply stick a cheap hood on him and Ta-Daaa! hes someone else entirely. The fans never know, do they? Ummm...Yes. Yes we do. Better still, is the re-packaging of a familiar wrestler as a new character entirely, something that can be done very easily (and very effectively), by putting the wrestler under a flashy new mask. A great many wrestlers have ridden the masked mystery man gimmick to enormous success over the years, especially in Mexican lucha libre, where masked wrestling is a culture unto itself. It is a culture that builds a modern bridge between the Aztec ceremonies of bygone years and the re-enactment of rituals emphasized by professional wrestling. This list is an attempt to break down the thousands of masked wrestlers that have enjoyed success over the years to a selection of just ten (although cheated a bit and added a few tie-breakers) and then to put that ten into some sort of order. Here, then, are the top 10 masked wrestlers of all time...
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
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Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
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Latcho Drom,
- CQ
