Woodbro Chillson

latimes:

‘Crusader’ against illegal immigration brings his message to the mat: ”RJ Brewer” — real name, John Stagikas — has wrestled his way across the Southwest to almost entirely hostile crowds. His shaved-headed, in-your-face character was created two years ago by the Mexican American wrestling promotion company Lucha Libre USA.

When Lucha Libre USA approached him about joining its circuit, “at first the character was supposed to be kind of like a mama’s boy from Arizona, more like a frat boy,” Stagikas said. “I was like, all right, I’ll try it. But it came more natural to me to not be some pretty boy with hair spiked but to be a political character.”

He and the Lucha Libre USA organizers eventually settled on a character who they would say was Gov. Brewer’s son. They knew right away they had found the perfect villain.

Photo: Lucha Libre USA wrestler RJ Brewer, left, battles Blue Demon Jr. in the ring at Stockton Arena. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

That’s SO awesome. Back in the early ’90s Art Barr and Eddy Guerrero wrestled as “Los Gringos Locos,” that would wear american flag spandex and chant “187!” at the mexican immigrant crowd, a reference to the controversial anti-immigrant proposition 187 that was being voted on at the time. When Lucha gets political about non-immigrant issues it gets really weird, like Los Talibanes that debuted in AAA months after 9/11. Also they have satanic futbol goats Los Chivos.