Thread title's a victim of the word limit but the question this thread is asking is why haven't we seen a female lucha star really breakout in the US?

The closest examples I can think of are Sarah Stock/ Sarita  and maybe Sexy Star ( but Lucha Underground was never even really TNA level, and was a lucha brandied show so I'm not sure if she counts). Even Sarah who had some success in the US was never really a major focus of any program she was on. 

It's also weird to me that we've seen several Japanese female stars have success in the US, yet we've never had a real authentic lucha female wrestler have major success in the US

does Taya count?

WWE has that lucha lady who is now visible in the stands, Catarina or something. She had a few appearances on RAW feuding with Vega back when Hunico was around. She isn't that bad, should be featured more in NXT.

Does Lita not count?

Jun 17, 2020 13:08:38 GMT 🤯 said:

Does Lita not count?

Guessing he means a latina.

Jun 17, 2020 14:01:09 GMT Blindy said:

Jun 17, 2020 13:08:38 GMT 🤯 said:

Does Lita not count?

Guessing he means a latina.

Lucha and Latina are VERY different things though.

Assuming he did mean Latina (which I don't think he did?) -- does Melina not count?

Jun 17, 2020 14:12:24 GMT 🤯 said:

Jun 17, 2020 14:01:09 GMT Blindy said:

Guessing he means a latina.

Lucha and Latina are VERY different things though.

Assuming he did mean Latina (which I don't think he did?) -- does Melina not count?

I mean someone from Mexico rather than an Irish American who went down to Mexico to train and wrestle.

(Though Stock is from Canada)

Jun 17, 2020 14:17:08 GMT Blindy said:

Jun 17, 2020 14:12:24 GMT 🤯 said:

Lucha and Latina are VERY different things though.

Assuming he did mean Latina (which I don't think he did?) -- does Melina not count?

I mean someone from Mexico rather than an Irish American who went down to Mexico to train and wrestle.

(Though Stock is from Canada)

But Mexican =/= Latina either.

And even so, Melina apparently identifies as a Mexican American. So does she count then? Or no?

I'm primarily referring to women who have wrestled most of there careers in Mexico, and who wrestle a lucha based style. Taya I would say doesn't count because she doesn't really sue a lucha based style when she she wrestles. Lita i would say didn't wrestle in Mexico long enough to count.

I'm thinking of more along the lines of why someone like Faby Apache hasn't crossed over to the US and found success. A younger example would be someone like Keyra.

Is there much of a scene for female workers in Mexico?

Jun 18, 2020 8:18:52 GMT NATH45 said:

Is there much of a scene for female workers in Mexico?

Cmll and AAA both have women's divisions with pretty sizable women's rosters. The indy scene seems to be pretty full of female talent too. 

It’s probably due to the differences in culture around wrestling, quite similar to Japan in that respect. They end up being pigeon-holed and very few breakout past that unfortunately. (Edit - so I guess what I mean is the top stars would probably prefer to stay where they are rather than make the jump to America)

Jun 18, 2020 12:07:43 GMT kingoftheworld said:

It’s probably due to the differences in culture around wrestling, quite similar to Japan in that respect. They end up being pigeon-holed and very few breakout past that unfortunately. (Edit - so I guess what I mean is the top stars would probably prefer to stay where they are rather than make the jump to America)

Yes but at the same time Japan has had several female wrestler cross over to some success ( Bull Nakano, Jumping Bomb Angels, Asuka, Kairi, Io, and to a certain extent Ayako Hamada and Akira  Hokuoto), I'm just curious why there hasn't been at least as much crossover as seen with the Joshi scene. 

I would say WWE had very limited success with their Joshi experiment, it was quite novel but again goes back to them getting pigeon holed. Asuka is probably the first to get past the burden of being foreign with Io right behind her, although as much as I love Io she’s not really watched by the mainstream/casuals so she’s got to repeat the process again if she gets moved to Raw/SD.

Lita probably is the closest to a Lucha star as she certainly helped popularise the high flying moves, but I don’t really consider her ‘Lucha’...more of a high risk wrestler, similar to how you wouldn’t say Jeff Hardy wrestled a lucha style. Her run with Essa Rios helped but she went with the Hardys there was less emphasis on the lucha moves aspect and more about the high risk.

I was hoping for some good things with the Zelina/Catalina thing going on but usual it got dropped for no reason.