Ruben Ricardo León: Behind the Mask / Dear Everyone: Kindly go fuck yourselves

Voiceover The world of professional wrestling has seen some incredible characters since its humble origins in the nineteenth century, but perhaps no aspect of the sport has brought us such interesting and varied competitors as the specialist Mexican form, Lucha Libre.

Since professional wrestling really took off in Mexico in the 1930s, masked Mexican superstars have been wowing crowds in their millions. The outfits and colourful personalities that comes out of the sport range from the gritty to the fantastical, but all of them bring excitement to the Mexican fanbase.

On a few, rare occasions, these men find success outside of their native country, usually in Japan, but even more rarely in the United States. In the last couple of years, one man has emerged from success in the Mexican national promotions to win the hearts of the millions of fans on the American pro wrestling circuit by going on a run to the IWF World Heavyweight title, and becoming the most successful Luchador ever. That man is Ruben Ricardo León, and this is 'ESPN Presents – Ruben Ricardo León: Behind the Mask'.

The screen shows the ESPN logo, followed by a compilation video package of moments from Ruben Ricardo León's life and career, before finally settling on a background image of one of Ruben's mask designs from a number of different angles, with the show logo imprinted on the front.


Voiceover Ruben Ricardo León's life had humble beginnings. Born to parents Gonzalo, a miner and Alexandra in Villahermosa, Mexico on the 30th of June 1980, Ruben's family were poor, but got by comfortably on his father's wage.

Ruben was only five years old when he first encountered the sport that he would grow up to dominate. Ruben tells the story himself, in this interview from early on in his career in the United States.

The show cuts to a clip of Ruben Ricardo León sat in front of a background that is emblazoned with the NLWF logo.

Ruben Ricardo León: So my dad saved up all of his extra wages one month, the money he usually spent on taking my mother out for dinner somewhere nice or something, and he got us two tickets to the Lucha Libre show that came to town. This was a big deal, the Lucha Libre companies only came to Villahermosa about once every 5 years at this point. It was just a little backwater town where nothing big ever happened, so for those guys to come and wrestle there was huge.

Anyway we went along to the show. It happened to be Consejo de Luchador Mundial, who would give me my big break over a decade later, and I went along and saw the show and it was incredible. It was like...the greatest spectacle I have ever seen. Can you imagine, being a 5 year old kid who has grown up with almost nothing in the way of entertainment, to see that spectacle. All the guys in their bright costumes and incredibly detailed masks.

The matches were incredible, and then we got really lucky and somehow ended up backstage. Like I literally can't even remember how it happened it was all such a blur. There was this really stupid but cool thing where one of the guys in the show, Vaquero Mexicano, who was one of the best in the world at the time, let me pin him or something. He said that in 15 years I would be back and pinning him for real, and he was right. He was who I beat for my first world title.

But that moment, right there, was where I realised what I was going to do with my life, where I would end up. I knew from that second on that I was going to be a Luchador, and that everything I did from that point would lead to that goal.

The show cuts back to images of Ruben at various stages of his childhood, including some of him in Lucha Libre masks. Mysteriously, all the photos of him with masks on are perfectly clear, whilst all of the photos of him unmasked are blurry or grainy, so that it is difficult to make out the features of his face.

Voiceover Ruben's dedication to the cause of becoming a professional wrestler was absolute. Parents and teachers alike were baffled as to why the otherwise intelligent and erudite young boy was doing so badly in school. Ruben struggled all throughout his compulsory education, trying and failing to balance the commitments of schoolwork with the Lucha Libre training that he began as early as age 10.

By the age of 17 he had left education altogether, failing to even achieve the equivalent of a high school diploma. He was signed to a developmental deal by Union de Lucha Libre Villahermosa, one of the many start-up local promotions that came out of the Lucha Libre boom of the mid 1980s. Here was where he first managed to truly get in touch with the sport that he loved. Thunder Insano was one of his trainers.

The show now cuts to a fat, late-middle aged Mexican looking man with grey hair and a cheap looking denim shirt sat in front of a screen.

Thunder Insano: As soon as Ruben arrived to the first training camp we knew we had a special kid. Generally, about half the people we get through our doors don't make it past the first weekend, but Ruben passed every test we put in front of him with flying colours. You could tell he was destined for the big time. It was like he had been preparing all his life. We were so excited to finally have a truly gifted natural to train.

There is now a montage of pictures of Ruben and his fellow trainees at the Villahermosa Wrestling school.

Voiceover The training would be long and hard for Ruben, and it would be two years before he made his professional debut, aged only 19, for the main promotion. It was almost no time at all before he had reached the top of the promotion. Thunder Insano recalls:

Thunder Insano: Really he exceeded all expectations, which is saying something because we expected him to be huge. He won the regional heavyweight, light-heavyweight and super-middleweight titles in the promotion within months of debuting. He was unstoppable. The only thing that surprised us all was just how long it took a major national company to pick him up.

Voiceover Sure enough, eventually the call came and Ruben Ricardo León made it to the big leagues. The company that had started him down the path towards a career in professional wrestling, Consejo de Luchador Mundial offered Ruben a contract, which he promptly took up. He didn't know it at the time, but he was merely months away from fulfilling his dream.

Living up to his seemingly limitless promise, Ruben accomplished his childhood ambition by winning his first ever Mexican National Championship, by defeating his hero and idol Vaquero Mexicano in a two out of three falls match in Mexico City. He was aged only 22.

One name would dominate the world of Lucha Libre for the next eight years. Ruben Ricardo León would go on to win title after title, maintaining an impressive unbeaten record that stretched over 5 years. He even managed to romp to an impressive 13-0 lucha de apuestas record, taking the masks and hair of many whilst always retaining his own.

Eventually there was no more challenge in this area for him, so he sought greener pastures...

The video cuts to Ruben's debut in NLWF, in which he crushed his opponent in a matter of seconds, before switching back to an image of Ruben in front of an interview screen.

Ruben Ricardo León: Simply put, I had done everything there was to do in Mexico. I'd won all the championships, broken all the records. There was nothing else to achieve. I could have gone to one of the other national promotions but they didn't pose a challenge either. I had to go for something completely different. Something I had never experience before. That's why I decided to give wrestling in America a try.

It was a new frontier. I know a lot of luchadors had been there before me, but none of them had managed to make it to the big time. Some got in to the national promotions but got buried. It's a shame. I just don't think the world was ready for lucha libre in the early 2000s.

Voiceover Finally, however, the world WAS ready and Ruben made an instant splash in the NLWF. Sadly always overshadowed by the mercurial talent of Brandon 'Biggie Mac' Macdonald, Ruben didn't get the run out he deserved, always seeming second best to the Canadian. Despite this, a brief run as the NLWF Golden Crown champion cemented his right to a place in America's big leagues.

Ruben would fins no more success in NLWF. Remaining fiercely loyal to Chuck Matthews, Bad Company and the NLWF during the split with Fight the World Wrestling, Ruben found himself on the end of a raw deal as he fought in what was supposedly Mathews' last match as an in-ring competitor. The match is famous for the moment when Ruben managed to drive Chuck Matthews through the steel of the entrance ramp in a feat that defied the explanations of physicists to this day.

The demise of the NLWF brought a tough choide for Ruben Ricardo León. Having summarily failed to meet the heights that were expected of him by many in the American big leagues, he had to make a choice: continue or retire. He was offered a contract with the new upstart IWF promotion, and after several weeks deliberation, he took the rule. He explains why.

Ruben Ricardo León: I thought about where I was at the time and was disappointed that I had never managed to win the big one in NLWF. My goal was to be the first luchador to win a world heavyweight title, a feat which had literally never happened before, and I knew thatif I hung up my boots before I achieved that then I would have failed. I would have failed not only me, but my family and my country as well. I had to do it. For everyone.

Voiceover Ruben enjoyed a run of early success during his time in IWF, and it wasn't long before he found himself in the mix for the inaugural Battle for the Briefcase tournament. On his way to winning the briefcase, Ruben would beat an all time great in Corey Casey, ans the brother of who could be considered his arch-rival in his time in America, Brandon Macdonald.

This tournament success would lead to further glory, when Ruben finally achieved the culmination of a lifelong dream in winning the IWF World Heavyweight Championship. It would be the first and only time he would win this title in his career, as well as being the first and so far only time a Mexican luchador has won such an accolade.

The World Championship run would not last long, however, and Ruben quickly found himself out of opportunities in a company that boasted a number of world class competitors from around the globe. A dispute with former friend and team mate Chuck Matthews would lead to Ruben very publicly airing his dirty laundry before calling time on his career in the United States.

Ruben had been offered a substantial amount of money to return to Lucha Libre with the big rivals of his former employeers, Liga de Luchadores. Seeing the hotting up of relations with the big players of IWF as a prime opportunity to get back to the grass roots of wrestling, Ruben took the chance and moved back to Mexico. Former LdL owner Gaucho Ramirez explains.

Gaucho Ramirez: We really needed a marquee signing to sell the relaunch of the promotion. We had new investor cash behind us and we heard rumours that Ruben Ricardo León was unhappy with his role at IWF. We talked with the financiers and decided that he was our man. We'd offer him whatever it took to bring him back to Mexico, and it worked.

Sadly, the investors turned out to be bogus and before long, we couldn't pay the wages for such a megastar. The company went bust and ownership rights defaulted to Ruben. He liquidated the assets and took the money he made back to the States.

Voiceover The Ruben Ricardo León that returned to the United States was a different man. Gone was the honour that so characterised his early IWF performances, replaced with an unhealthy disdain for others around him. Blaming Chuck Matthews for the demise, Ruben set out on what equated to a quest to ruin Matthews' life. It seemed to be going well, as Ruben easily captured Chuck Matthews' IWF Tag Team Championships along with Craig Hemming, but only a couple of weeks later it was revealed that Chuck had passed away.

Now seemingly aimless, Ruben drifted around the federation, shifting allegiance regularly. Seemingly disillusioned and directionless, Ruben's short career culminated in his retirement at IWF Spring Fling, during which he said goodbye to IWF and wrestling fans in his final ever professional match.

The career of a great was finally over, overshadowed by the knowledge that so much more could have been achieved. The story of Ruben Ricardo León is one of both realised and wasted potential.

The show fades to credits, with the mask of Ruben Ricardo León displayed prominently in the background.


Ruben Ricardo León: And the award for biggest windbag of the last 35years goes to...Rush Limbaugh. Just kidding, everyone knows that award belongs to Corey Casey.

I have one important question for the King of the Bumbaclots: Are you serious, bro? Mouthing off about how I constantly big myself up and how my sense of self is so inflated that my ego dwarfs even that of Matthews and Hawk? Maybe you should take a look in the mirror, because since I left Utter Dipshits I haven't said a word. If that's bigging myself up, well I guess everyone else has been doin' it wrong.

You know the reason that I left Upper Limit? I didn't leave because I thought I was better than you assholes. Hell, I'm not that stupid. I've never beaten Shark and I've only bested you once. I left because Upper Limit is destined to fail.

It's destined to fail because it has such a giant fuckwit leading the line. Do you know what I saw in Upper Limit after I came back? Since I returned, UL has had two of it's members retire (and I should know, I helped retire one of them...) and one of it's former members DIE. What the fuck happens to the next in line, do they get completely erased from existence?

Upper Limit is a ticking timebomb. I got no beef with Sharky or Hart. Sure, we've had our scuffles in the past but I got some advice for you boys. Get out while you can. Get out before Casey fucks it up so bad for you that your careers, or worse, your lives end. Get out now!

Some may say I made a mistake by coming back to IWF, but they'd be wrong. It wasn't a mistake because you know what? It made me realise that I'm done with this fucking business. No matter how much I try to escape it, there'll always be a bigger asshole ego out there than mine looking to dominate everything and everyone and I'm sick of that bullshit.

You know the reason I failed here (oh hey I admitted I failed, you mad bro?) isn't because I don't have the ability. I have more than enough ability to beat you, to beat Brandon, to beat Chuck, Death Angel and Jason Hawk (and you know I've done it). Fuck, I've got ability going spare. I failed here because I wasn't willing to let myself get caught up in the fucked up battle of the egomaniacs that goes on in order to determine who comes out at the top of the pile. There was always one person willing to be more of a fucked up douchebag than me and that meant that they won out.

But you know what? I'm fine with that. I am very comfortable and content with the fact that I'm not the biggest shithead in the world. And you know what else? I used to think that guy was Chuck Matthews, but I was wrong. Even when Chuck was alive the size of his ego was dwarfed by that of Bumbaclot Casey.

Corey, I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of the bullshit pretend friendships and alliances that go on here, I'm sick of the bullshit backstage politics, I'm sick of the stupid anti-Mexican racist shit I have to go through before my matches every week, I'm sick of the giant ego battlefield that is the locker room. I'm sick of it all.

So you know what, Casey? Go ahead and end my career, because I've gone lightyears beyond giving even a single fuck anymore. Even if I win at Spring Fling I'm going to fucking retire. But don't expect me to go down without a fight. Because I am going to prove to the world for the very last time that I am not a hack, I am not a one hit wonder. I am the greatest luchador that has ever set foot on this planet, and I am a far greater human being than Corey Casey will ever be.

Corey Casey, at Spring Fling you may prove that you're the better man in the ring but goddamn if I do not give a flying fuck because I will always know that I am the better man outside it.

To everyone that has followed me over the years, thank you. To every one that has opposed me, go fuck yourselves.

RRL out. Over and out.