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Lydia Cacho, John Galán Casanova and Daniel Samper Pizano in conversation with Primitivo Olvera

Professional wrestling

Cartagena 2023, Saturday 28 January 2023

In Mexico and other Latin American countries, professional wrestling is a sport, spectacle, popular art and the subject of sociological study. Lydia Cacho, the well-known Mexican journalist, knew all the greats of the ring as a girl who accompanied her mother to cover the wrestling event news. Two Colombian authors, Daniel Samper Pizano and the poet John Galán Casanova, have recently published books involving wrestling. Galán has written the literary biography of the legendary champion Bill Martínez, El Tigre Colombiano (Entrena como bestia, pelea como salvaje) and he interviews him on video for this event. With a humorous tone, Samper tells of an encounter with the famous Blue Demon in La noche que humillaron a mi padre. They will talk to Primitivo Olvera and they will remember the photographer Lourdes Grobet, who passed away a few months ago, who used her camera to immortalize the surreal, colourful and whimsical world hidden behind the masks of the wrestlers.