Santos Escobar reflects on his matchup against Dragon Lee at the recent WWE Survivor Series premium live event.
Escobar spoke on this match with Freddie Prinze Jr. during the latest edition of Prinze’s ‘Wrestling With Freddie’ podcast. At one point in the bout Escobar ripped Lee’s mask, a disrespectful act that is frowned upon in lucha-libre. He tells Prinze that the spot was 100% unplanned and led to him getting a ton of heat ahead of his eventual victory.
I think nowadays, our audiences are understanding the importance of the mask. I don’t know if you recall, at the latest premium live event, Survivor Series, I tore Dragon Lee’s mask. That was 100% non scripted. That was just the heel in me and I think it’s important that our audiences get that feel. Now we have Dragon Lee, now we have Axiom, now we have Rey, now we have more and more people diving into the lucha culture but like really, really doing it with the mask, the tradition, the respect that’s behind the mask. It’s important that our audiences know, for a fact, that when someone with the mask goes against the mask, it means something. It ups the stakes. We were in Chicago of all places, Chicago is Mexico [laughs]. So when I tore that mask, I could feel the white heat.
Elsewhere in the interview, Escobar spoke about the creative freedoms he has in WWE. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)