Mask collection retrospective: 2016

The retrospective series continues into 2016. From this point on, you'll see me generally focus on depth more than breadth. This means that I'll be highlighting fewer different luchadors, but (at least in my opinion) the stories will become more interesting. So here we go.

Previous entries in the series can be found here: 2013, 2014, 2015.

For 2016, the three masks I'll be showing are:

• Fireball
• Octagón Jr. (II) presentation mask
• Centvrión

Fireball

Flamita went through a couple of gimmicks in relatively short order in 2015-16, before settling on remaining "Flamita" until his heel turn in ROH in 2021. When he signed with AAA, they initially gave him the name "Fireball". I have a Flamita design mask from July 2015 signed as "Fireball AAA" from July 2015, but it wasn't until January 2016 that I got an actual Fireball design mask. This gimmick was short-lived, and this is one of the few original Fireball masks in existence.

The circumstances of how I got this mask form part of a much larger story in which I saw four different identities of Flamita in Boyle Heights within a span of 24 hours. I've recounted this story at length in another blog post, so I won't repeat all the details here. Nonetheless, it's a story that's stuck with me over the years and is one of the strongest memories that I have ever had, or ever will have, involving lucha, and I'll forever be grateful to Flamita for that experience.

In terms of this mask specifically, it's worth noting that Flamita signed it as Fireball but added フラミータ ("Flamita" in katakana), technically making it one of the few masks that I have that is signed by a single person acknowledging multiple gimmicks simultaneously.

Octagón Jr. (II) presentation mask

This is the presentation mask that Flamita used in his debut as the second incarnation of Octagón Jr. on March 4, 2016. (The first was Samuray del Sol aka Kalisto in WWE, and the third and current version, the only one to last any significant length of time, is played by the former Golden Magic.)

I ended up getting this one not through Flamita, but through Highspots, who bought a bunch of masks from him at Wrestlecon that year. While Flamita ended up embroiled in controversy over the Octagón name and quickly dropped both the gimmick and AAA, this is still one of my favorite masks. I later had him dedicate the mask to my name while we were in a car ride on the way to an AIW show in June.

Centvrión

This is a silver lamé mask that Centvrión used in, among other places, his debut in Arena México with Elite on January 17, 2016. I bought it from him at a CaraLucha show in November of that year. He wasn't on the CaraLucha card, but he's the type of guy who would attend shows around the area just to watch and hang out with friends. I actually met him (unmasked) for the first time outside Arena México in September 2014 when I was attending my first live lucha show.

For those who aren't aware, Centvrión was a fairly important name in the greater Mexico City area indie lucha scene in the 2010s and was part of the Mala Hierba faction along with Fly Warrior and Látigo. If you could go back in time to that era and offer US group work visas to a bunch of luchadors, Centvrión would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic did him no favors and he was in effective semi-retirement until recently.

At the CaraLucha show in question, I asked him if I could buy a mask from him. He had only this one. He agreed to sell it to me if I promised to take good care of it, because it was a very special mask to him due to its use in Arena México. I agreed. This is the first time, though by no means the last, that I was made specifically aware of how some luchadors treat certain masks as special to themselves. And I became aware that there was value in having a reputation as a serious collector who buys masks to keep.

That wraps up 2016. I'll be back in the middle of the week to head into 2017.