IWRG Festival de las Máscaras

The Festival de las Máscaras (Spanish for "Festival of the Mask") is an annually recurring major professional wrestling show produced and scripted by International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG; Sometimes referred to as Grupo Internacional Revolución in Mexico). The focus of the show is paying homage to the history and "legends" of lucha libre each year. In Mexico when a wrestler loses a Lucha de Apuestas (a "bet match") and is forced to remove his wrestling mask they are usually not allowed to wrestle wearing the mask again. Starting in 2008 IWRG has held an annual show where they have been granted permission from the State of Mexico wrestling and boxing commission to allow previously unmasked wrestlers to wear their mask for one night of the year.

The first show was held on August 21, 2008, and IWRG has held an annual Festival de las Máscaras show each year since then somewhere between May and August each year. Often the main event features older wrestlers, who were the main eventers of the 1990s or early 2000s making special appearances for IWRG. All shows except the 2009 Festival de las Máscaras show have been held at Arena Naucalpan, IWRG's home arena in Naucalpan, State of Mexico, Mexico. The 2009 show was held at a convention center in Mexico City, part of that year's Lucha Libre Expo.

The wrestling mask has always held a sacred place in lucha libre, carrying with it a mystique and anonymity beyond what it means to wrestlers elsewhere in the world. The ultimate humiliation a luchador can suffer is to lose a Lucha de Apuestas, or bet match. Following a loss in a Lucha de Apuesta match the masked wrestler would be forced to unmask, state their real name and then would be unable to wear that mask while wrestling anywhere in Mexico. Since 2007 the Mexican wrestling promotion International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG; Sometimes referred to as Grupo Internacional Revolución in Spanish) has held a special annual show where they received a waiver to the rule from the State of Mexico Wrestling Commission and wrestlers would be allowed to wear the mask they previously lost in a Lucha de Apuestas.

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