Thread: 'Super Mojado,' Good-Guy Wrestler for Undocumented Workers,

'Super Mojado,' Good-Guy Wrestler for Undocumented Workers, Beats 'INS'

Sunday, March 23, 2008
Fox News

The "INS" got beat — and badly.

That's the Mexican-style wrestling team the "Irresistible Notorious Studs," not former federal Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"Lucha libre" character wrestler Super Mojado, the masked hero of undocumented workers single handedly beat the two-man-team of Ronnie K, an unmasked white man, and Viper, the masked traitor to his Latino brothers on Saturday in Van Nuys, California.

The match was a fundraising event to raise money for some of 138 undocumented workers busted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month.

"Everything we hoped for, we received," said Joseph Medina, a wrestling promoter and the character's creator told FOXNews.com Sunday, adding they raised at least $4,000. "The venue was for 200 people and we had 400 plus people show up. The match was a total success."

Medina said the proceeds will help the workers awaiting immigration hearings who have been unable to pay their rent since their arrests.

The "INS" team, came out throwing tortillas at the crowd, before Super Majado — Super Wetback, if you translate the Spanish slur — arrived at the ring.

"My quest in life is to deport Super Mojado — to get rid of him," Ronnie K said with a bit of wrestling bravado prior to the match. "Because there's not enough room for him and I in the United States."

After 25 minutes of a back-and-forth struggle between "INS" and Super Majado, the Mexican wrestling hero crushed his opponents and proved victorious.

"As soon as the match started, fans were on their feet through the whole match," said Medina. "I wish we could raise more [money]. There are 138 that need help. At least we did something for them."

The wrestlers, or luchadores, are part of New Tradition Wrestling, a league that fights in the Mexican "lucha libre" style. Masked characters in spandex pants fly from the ropes in acrobatic feats that are strung together by dramatic side stories of betrayal and honor.

Medina said the match was not just about entertainment, but to turn stereotypes upside-down, while helping immigrants learn about their rights.

"There's a lot of laws, there's a lot of penal codes that people don't know to defend them and help them," said Medina, who is Mexican-American. "We're trying to have this character educate all of us."

Medina dreamed up Super Mojado after ICE agents raided Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer-printer cartridge factory in Van Nuys, on Feb. 7 and arrested 138 people on a variety of immigration charges. The raid made big headlines in this Los Angeles neighborhood.

Super Mojado wears the flags of Spanish-speaking nations, abides by the motto "Hero for the Latin Community" and carries that racially charged name.

Medina settled on the slur — "that's what a lot of the people refer to us like" — after hearing that ICE agents had used it when separating the workers during the raid.

That's simply not true, said Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman.

"When we went into that factory we sought to group workers according to their status — we segregated U.S. citizens, people who had green cards and then people who did not have any appropriate authorization," she said.

"But we would not refer to anybody in that vernacular — that's not an appropriate term," she continued. "It's like so many things associated with professional wrestling — it's all hyperbole and myth."

Super Mojado and INS sound like "a tasteless exploitive publicity stunt," she said.

Medina said 90 percent of the people who attend his wrestling events are of Latino descent, and the characters are geared toward them.

"You go there and yell at the wrestlers," he said. "And you get your stresses out."

FOXNews' Sara Bonisteel contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340775,00.html

Don't these geniuses know there is no INS anymore.