Mistico: The Most Bootlegged Wrestler of the Modern Era

Alien. Luchador. Ninja. Samurai. Cage fighter. Just a few of the titles Mistico has worn throughout his career...in bootleg form anyway. Created in a Mexico City lab as a modern day El Santo, the young wrestler would take a mouthless mask to extreme success in his home country before exploding onto the international scene as both a lucha libre icon, and the most prolific bootleg action figure of the modern era.

The man that came to define the name Mistico began wrestling at age 15, paying his dues and learning his craft on the lower end of the card of Mexican wrestling shows near Mexico City. His big break came in 2004 when CMLL, the oldest and most respected wrestling company in Mexico, literally blessed him with the Mistico persona. Wrestling priest and inspiration for Jack Black's Nacho Libre, Fray Tormenta, brought the young wrestler out, claiming to have raised and trained him at his orphanage. The spiritual overtones gave the Mistico gimmick a holy aura that really helped the Mexican crowds rally behind the smaller luchador, but the fact that he was a bonafide lucha prodigy didn't hurt. His small stature and superhuman agility allowed him to show off a level of technical crispness that was missing from lucha main events, and as a result, he became the most popular wrestler in the country in years.



Chicks dig the mask: The original Mistico holding one of the many titles he won during his CMLL run.

The man behind the mask grew up in the famously violent slums of Mexico City called Tepito, where Santa Muerte-tinged violence isn't uncommon, and where pirated and bootlegged goods are freely sold in open markets. It's somewhat poetic that even with the fame and success he's achieved, he's become an icon as a bootlegged action figure, and I'd like to think that thousands of his unauthorized figures have been sold in same marketplaces he frequented as a child.

Unlike most bootlegged figures, where the child is looking to get a reasonable facsimile of an existing toy franchise, the Mistico bootlegs are seldom presented as wrestlers, making them appear as generic or original creations resembling a Power Ranger or ninja assassin. That means that while thousands of children will grow up with Mistico in their toybox, very few will connect the figure with the man himself. Compare that with the most famous bootleg luchador of all time, the static "one hand up, one hand down" lucha figure that is commonly found in 6 packs anywhere crappy Mexican tourist merch is being sold. While these are commonly painted (poorly) to resemble a wide spectrum of lucha characters, a closer inspection of the mask sculpt reveals the signature characteristics of El Santo's famously plain mask. A distinctly Mexican toy, it's tough to mistake the base figure for anything other than Santo himself.



Original bootleg: Several examples, both customized and scrubbed clean, of the first lucha figure.

The first Mistico bootlegs started showing up stateside around 2008, with generic Ninja 2-packs starting to appear at flea markets, dollar stores, or any other spots hocking mass-produced Chinese imports. Using what I assume is a shrunken head from the 2006 CMLL figure line, an enterprising bootleg designer attached it to the body to a generic action figure body creating something greater than the sum of it's parts. The stylized eye shapes and mouthless mask design offer a versatility that lent itself to several variations, including samurai, aliens, and MMA combatants. I give a lot of credit to the enterprising bootleggers for squeezing out as much usage as possible out of their figure mold, but they really struck gold when they started throwing together groups of figures and random accessories into full-on Mistico playsets. Cybernetic wings, Wolverine claws, even a straight-up motorcycle were carded with 4 or 5 multi-colored Mistico figures. And when that wasn't enough, translucent plastics and even battery-powered action features were included. Each new playset pushed the envelope a little further, and as of the publication date of this article and 5 years after finding the first Mistico bootleg, new variations are still being spotted in the wild.

And now I present my personal collection of bootleg Mistico playsets, all acquired by walking countless flea market aisles and sorting through piles and piles of crappy toys. While rarely costing more than $12, the hunt and scarcity of them makes me treasure them more than most of the "art toys" purchased online.



Loose CMLL bootleg and Ninja 2-pack



The "vanilla" Mistico uses the entire CMLL figure mold, whereas most just slapped the head on a plain body. This one is still commonly found in Dollar Tree stores, often featuring a chainsaw accessory and a fucked up paint job.

The Ninja's were the first figures I stumbled across and I literally didn't believe the information my eyes were sending to my brain. Completely amazed by it's existence, I bought it and uploaded pictures to a lucha libre message board, where other miscreants offered up cash for it. But even with it's $2 price tag, I couldn't part with it. I'd occasionally run into uninspired color variants of those first Ninja figures at Dollar Trees and gas stations, but it wasn't until about a year later that I realized the Mistico bootleg had become a sort of phenomenon.



Super Samurai Warriors



Translucent Power Ranger Misticos! The first playset to be discovered, and you can bet your ass I started lose my mind when I spotted that see-through red Mistico with pterodactyl wings and working eye lazers! Plus airbrushed prehistoric flame weapons for his henchman?!? Did someone lace my morning corndog with acid, or did this somehow actually exist? Just to be sure, I wolfed down the remaining corndog and handed over the cash for this magnificent bastard.



Extreme Fighting



As MMA became more and more popular, speculative bootleggers made sure to keep all of their bases covered as they converted a handful of pro-wrestler figure molds to mixed martial artists (you know, the kind involved in ladder battles). I applaud their bold decision to feature a masked MMA fighter, giving this version of Mistico some extreme tats, a Rob Liefeld torso, and stylish black-and-gold biker shorts.

Alien Power



While some of the other sets have a sense of "lets just throw together some similarly colored stuff together and card it", this bad motherfucker seems a bit too calculated for that. Maybe I'm projecting based on how bad-ass this turned out, but I definitely detect that some love went into this playset. As if some rogue bootlegger, up late in the toy factory decided to challenge himself to make the most balls-to-the-wall awesome set and when he exhaustedly collapsed in a pile of plastic figure bubbles and tiny ninja stars the next morning, this was what was assembled at his workstation. Wolverine claws? Why not! Samurai helmet? Sure, and why not throw a Kendo fencing mask in while we're at it. The cherry on top? A god-damned Action Cycle! I love this set so much that there are explicit instructions in my will for this to be presented to me on my deathbed, so my last moments are not spent sharing cherished moments with loved ones, but rather finally putting Mutant Samurai Mistico on his rad Action Cycle.




X-treme Super Samurai



A bit of a callback to the Super Samurai series above, they even got the figures right on the packaging this time. Part of being X-treme must involve better quality control! The same set of Samurai and Kendo armor are included, albeit in a flame color scheme this time, but the real kicker is the full size kid's sword included with this set. While the heavy sword tends to jostle the rest of the smaller accessories packaged, the bootleggers showed some real ingenuity in ditching extra in-scale accessories for a Power Ranger-style sword they could wack a younger sibling with once they were tired of the figures themselves. X-treme, indeed! 

Alien Spider



Alien Spider The most recent playset find, this one features a UFO figure that is commonly sold by itself wherever bootlegged toys are found. The detail that helps this transcend from a shitty toy set to a head-scratching bootleg treasure is paint application to the UFO figure itself. Had you ever noticed that Spider Man has the same eye shapes as a generic UFO? WELL THE BOOTLEGGER SURE DID! An intricate web design mimicking Spider Man's costume has been faithfully applied, creating an interesting "What If?" scenario where Peter Parker was never bitten by a radioactive spider and was instead granted his great powers from a spider-themed spaceman. Throw in a few Spider-Clones and a Mistico Venom or two and you got yourself some flea market gold! Safety tested, of course. ;)




El Cabroncito: Santo's Blood edition



Where's the Wolverine claws? And no Action cycle? What a gyp! Man, some bootleggers have no class!


Out with the old: Mistico adopts the Sin Cara persona / Mistico II makes his debut.

While new Mistico bootlegs are still seemingly being produced, there has been a major shift in the identity of Mistico, the wrestler. Over the last two decades, it's become more and more common for top-level luchadores to relocate to the United States for broader fame and a bigger payday. This leaves the promotion they've left feeling a little betrayed and with a hole in their roster, and they're quick to rectify both situations by putting a new wrestler under the established mask. While the masses don't seem to mind, or even really notice for that matter, hardcore lucha fans tend to hate these bootlegged wrestlers, as they generally don't live up to the greatness of the originators. This exact scenario recently played out when Mistico, having thoroughly conquered Mexico's wrestling industry, jumped ship to Vince McMahon's WWE. Like an evolving Pokemon, his mouthless mask gained some aerodynamic wings, and he announced the not-very-awesome name of Sin Cara. Not too long after that, CMLL announced new Mistico would debut in the same mask and costume as the original. So far, it's fair to say that neither experiment is working as well as they'd hoped, with Sin Cara seemingly unable to find the rhythm that made him such a phenomenon in Mexico and Mistico II's first year is plagued with lackluster matches and multiple injuries. Proof that the emergence of a lucha god is a once-a-generation occurrence that simply can't be manufactured...unless you own a bootleg toy factory.



Did you know Mistico has also been bootlegged as a sticker?  Get your Cabroncito sticker pack in the Scraped Resin store!

Thanks again to Jessina Z. for the majority of the photos here. If it wasn't for her help, this article would have been my words joined by several photographs of giant glares.

El Cabroncito: Santo's Blood edition

The bootleg universe of the Battling Bastards just got a LITTLE bigger.  El Cabroncito, the death-defying Mexican mini, joins Ultimate Carlos' army of lucha thugs with the latest release from Scraped Resin.

This Santo’s Blood Edition involves a two-part casting process using stage-blood red and silver-bullet resins, with no paint applied.  Each figure features unique blood drips; a supernatural Rorschach test that may very well cause your soul to unravel.  Generally sold at lucha libre events and Brujaria shops, these idols are commonly found adorning dashboards or spiritual alters in an effort to protect the owner from violence or bloodshed, at least outside of the wrestling ring.

Only 6 figures are available in this edition, and will never be produced in this colorway again.  Each resin figure will be packaged with an El Cabroncito vinyl sticker, a limited edition Saint card commerating the Santo's Blood colorway, and a header card featuring Lucha Libre legend El Santo.  The figures will go up for sale on Wednesday, May 8th at noon PST at http://scrapedresin.bigcartel.com and will be $30 each, shipped.

A big thanks to Jessina Z. for joining the Scraped Resin clan as our ringside photographer. You can see more of her work at her Flickr and Tumblr, as well as future Battling Bastard posts.  Stay tuned!

Midgets, Magnets & More!

Sorry for the lack of updates here lately, but I can assure you that things have been busy at Scraped Resin HQ.  We learned so much from the release of Ultimate Carlos and have been toiling in the lab to make the next release even better.

The Littlest Bastard: In scale with Ultimate Carlos, this is as close to a mini figure as you'll get.

The next figure release is happening next week and will introduce the diminutive psychopath, El Cabroncito, to the Battling Bastards universe.  The first edition is a doozy featuring some neat resin effects and vaguely supernatural overtones.  A photographer reached out to us about taking official photos of the figures, and we should have some spooky pics of their first session soon.  What’s more is the newest Battling Bastard sticker is on the way from the printer, so we’ll hopefully be able to package them with Cabroncito, along with some surprise swag we’ve cooked up.

Strike a pose: Magnetic articulation transforms resin statues into action figures.

As cool as the first edition of Ultimate Carlos turned out, his statue-like nature never sat right with me.  I’ve been experimenting with some strong magnets and the results have been fun as hell to play with.  So, hold on to those first edition figures (holy shit, there is still one left!) as these non-articulated Bastards won’t be produced again.

A preview of the header card for Cabroncito, likely one of the last bagged figures to drop.

While I’ve always found header card art to be one of the most charming aspects of the resin movement, we are stepping up our packaging game hardcore this summer.  We’ve been experimenting with different printers, materials and adhesives and can’t wait to show off the first version of the new cardback next month.

Come back next week for details on the Cabroncito release, as well as an retrospective on the greatest mainstream bootleg of the modern era: Mistico!

El Cabroncito: The Littlest Bastard

Born out of an illicit love affair between a top lucha libre legend and a female midget wrestler, El Cabroncito’s father denied his son his lineage, fearing it would tarnish his highly respected reputation.

Son of a ruda: Tati "La Tigresa" Morales held the Women's Mini-Championship until the day she gave birth.

Raised in the bullet-riddled slums of Mexico City, Cabroncito vowed revenge on the lucha icon. Harboring an intense thirst for violence and a serious Napoleon complex, the little bastard was quick to pull a tee-ball bat on anyone that pointed out his diminutive stature or rumored heritage, earning him a reputation the most dangerous little person in the country.

Keep walkin', gramma: A young Cabroncito holds down the corner with full-sized authority.

As his legendary father grew old and sickly, he realized the damage his selfishness had caused and tried to resolve his error before his death. He invited Cabroncito on a Mexican talk show where he revealed to the viewing audience their family bond and his hidden shame.

Let's bring him on out: The calm before the storm.

As he kneeled down to offer a hug to his newly accepted son, Cabroncito fired his smallish foot deep into his father’s crotch before snatching his dad’s legendary mask from his head, revealing his face for the first time in his historic career. The television hosts, along with the entire viewing audience, gasped at the atrocity, unable to process what they were seeing. The last image broadcast was El Cabroncito flipping off the camera as he lit the host's couch on fire with his zippo.

Meanwhile in Tijuana:

Nursing a bloody mary and looking over a list new Bastards to potentially recruit, Ultimate Carlos glanced up at the TV just long enough to see a half-sized psychopath kicking an old douchebag in the plums.

“Great...” He thought to himself, “Now I gotta travel all the way to Mexico City.”


Say hello to our little friend: El Cabroncito is the newest member of The Battling Bastards.



Bootleggin' Bastards

As we gear up for this Friday's sale, let's take a minute to look at the step-by-step process of turning a bunch of chemicals into a little plastic Mexican.

The lab: Tools, paints, sprays, dyes, sandpapers and 2 dozen random action figure limbs.  There is a crap load of materials needed at any given point during the process, and it's handy to have them all at an arms length.  Shouts out to my Dremel: stay grinding.



To kitbash a figure, is to give it immortality.  Here I take one of my all time favorite figures, a Dick Tracy Mumbles, add in a head from classic lucha rudo, Pierroth (from the 90's CMLL figure line) and and add pegs and sculpting that will help with easily pouring the resin.



The next step is to create a mold for each seperate piece, which is likely the most labor intensive aspect of the process.  This involves making two halves for each mold, using a combination of Legos, clay and silicone rubber.  Many factors, including gravity, air flow, and mold volume, make the process a little trickier than it sounds, and using quality silicone can make mistakes somewhat costly, so mapping out good molds is key.



Once the molds are in place, I cast each piece by measuring out and mixing together resin and pouring into each mold.  The resin has a short working time, so once poured and the mold is secured with rubber bands, they are quickly placed into a pressure pot hooked up to a compressor and pressurized by 30-40 psi.  This shrinks bubbles forming in the resin and helps ensure a smooth cast.

The resin takes less than 10 minutes to set, then it's out of the pressure pot so I can get the next batch in.



The cast looks good and bubble free!  With this small victory achieved, it's time to trim off any flash that bled out of the main mold area, which generally can be done with a fingernail or small knife shortly after casting.  This is followed by sawing off the vent holes and sanding down the seams with 3 different levels of wet sand paper.  A somewhat daunting process when you multiply each figure by 8 pieces!

As I previously mentioned, I had never painted figures prior to Ultimate Carlos, and ended up trying a few different paints and small brushes.  Getting a clean application can be nerve-racking, but I am starting to enjoy the meditative qualities of painting tiny shoes and sculpted hankerchiefs.

Each figure is sprayed with an industrial aerosol gloss, glued together with high quality adhesives and packaged with their numbered, photoshopped headers.  Don't miss out on your chance to score one of the 6 original Battling Bastards figures, this Friday at 6pm PST in the Scraped Resin store.