Lucha VaVoom: Bizarre Los Angeles Stage Show Combines Burlesque With Mexican Wrestling

Lucha VaVoom seems like the invention of a madman or possibly a very imaginative adolescent boy, but the combination of American burlesque and Mexican wrestling is taking Los Angeles by storm.

The show is a mixed bag of the bizarre, including a transvestite wrestler doing a power bomb from a third-story balcony to a concrete floor below and acrobats that strip nearly naked.

Lucha VaVoom sounds absurd, but the unique combination is drawing people from all parts of the country.

“I’ve been a wrestling fan, big-time, since the days of Hulk Hogan, but when I saw this — there’s nothing like this,” said Adalid Sanchez, an elementary-school teacher.

Between the wrestling matches, burlesque acts from around the world perform for the audience.

“At Lucha VaVOOM, we like a little sexo with our violencia,” the act noted on its website. “Raucous aerial acts, Pogo-stick peelers, hula-hoop hotties; we’ve got it all.”

The Lucha VaVoom show also includes color commentary from some big-name comedians, including guest commentators Fred Armisen, Brian Poussein, Patton Oswald, and even Jack Black

Lucha VaVoom has reached an audience that hits everyone from factory workers and school teachers to Hollywood hotshots.

“There’s no show that’s funnier, sillier or more entertaining than this one,” said Eric Idle, a regular at Lucha VaVoom shows and Monty Python member.

The show’s genesis came 12 years ago on the set of a movie about genetically enhanced baboons. The movie was a flop, but costumer Liz Fairbairn met a luchador during filming in Mexico who became her boyfriend. The two later split, but Fairbairn started an even longer love affair with the colorful and acrobatic Mexican wrestling style known as Lucha Libra.

Fairbairn saw potential for the wrestling style with Los Angeles audiences, but decided to add burlesque girls to boost the audience. The idea worked, and after several years of sell-out shows Lucha VaVoom is now going on the road.

Lucha VaVoom has a show planned in Chicago, with others later this year in Florida and Japan.

The connections the show has made in Hollywood could help it grow internationally. Eric Idle said he would love to bring Lucha VaVoom to England in the near future.