What exactly is Lucha Libre – a sport beloved by Mexicans, but little known in the UK?

“It’s a combination of many things,” he said. “It’s a sport, and it requires athleticism.

“But it also has drama and magic. It’s not enough to be a competitor – you also have to feel the atmosphere, and express what you feel.”

He will fight for between 10 and 40 minutes – there is no set time – in a heavily stylised wrestling match, where the “good guys”, or tecnicos, are pitched against the “bad guys”, or rudos. He plans his moves in advance, but said that things do not always go to plan.

“I’m a rudo – I was born that way,” he said. “My dad, who is still wrestling now at the age of 63, is a tecnico. He didn’t want me to be a rudo. But I had no choice – that’s me.

“I consider myself a complete luchador – I can fly, wrestle on the ground. I also mock my adversary. I don’t care about making myself loved by the crowd. But they do love me, because they can see I love this sport.”

Lucha Libre – or “free wrestling” – begun in Mexico in the 1930s, when an American promoter introduced the concept south of the border. Blending Mayan and Aztec traditions of masks with Greco-Roman wrestling and acrobatics, it became a wildly-popular form of entertainment, reaching its zenith in the 1950s with fighters such as El Santo – The Saint.