Ah, a question I’ve been meaning to ask.

Ah, a question I’ve been meaning to ask.

Ah, a question I’ve been meaning to ask… With International Incident introducing the Luchador as a separate Gimmick, what should a High Flyer with Enmascarado represent in the same game with a genuine Luchador (if, indeed, they should be able to coexist at all)? Maybe a character like El Generico or Prince Puma who’s presented as a luchador but didn’t really come up through lucha culture?

Also, I assume that wrestlers, particularly Kane types whose masks aren’t really a target for their opponents, can wear masks without necessarily taking one of the mask-centric moves (Enmascarado or Tradicional), right? The phrasing of both moves seems to indicate that taking them is more a matter of placing emphasis on the value of your mask (and, in exchange, exposing yourself to the risk of randomly losing it) rather than actually about gaining a mask.

4 thoughts on “Ah, a question I’ve been meaning to ask.”

  1. Enmascarado is for people who want to put on the line. Kane wears a mask because (allegedly) he’s burnt; he and Mankind never put their masks on the line in a meaningful way.

  2. Remember that the playbooks represent a gimmick and that a wrestler can move through several during their career. The Luchador playbook emphasizes cultural elements, such as the prevalence of tag matches and the veneration of the mask. The High Flyer emphasizes daredevil high-risk maneuvers that steal the show. It is completely possible for these to coexist or for a character to proceed from one to another.

  3. Yeah, you can wear a mask without having to have one of the mask-based moves, of course. And yes, I think they can totally co-exist.

    I went back and forth about whether to take out or change Enmascadero entirely because of the Luchador! But decided against it because it would be a big change to a popular Gimmick, and because the Moves are actually pretty different. Enmascadero is specifically when your mask is on the line a match; Tradicional is more about how your wrestler exists in the fiction of the world (notice that it doesn’t need to be in a match to be triggered).

    For Season One Lucha Underground viewers, the episode where Superfly gets unmasked, that’s Enmascadero. He’s not a huge player in the show, the fallout is confined to the one match. The closest to Tradicional (that I’ve seen) is probably in the Grave Consequences match, when Mil Muertes basically tears the mask off of Fenix and he works the bulk of the mask with it barely holding on.

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