In the world of Mexican professional wrestling, called lucha libre, some wrestlers manage to hold onto their precious masks for years, even their entire career, despite the seeming ubiquity of luchas de apuestas matches, or wager matches involving titles and masks.
How in the world do so many wrestlers manage to go so many years without being forced to unmask? And what goes into deciding who has to surrender their mask? How “over” they are?
I hate to break it to ya kid, but even Mexican professional wrestling is staged. I suspect that the cartel leaders have their favorites and that they are involved in the gameplay at some level, along with the media and paparazzi.
They can move to a new territory and use their lost mask and name. But in practice, only a wrestler willing or wanting to change their personae or retire is going to sign on as the loser of a mask wager.
That’s what Rey Mysterio Jr. did - he lost his mask in WCW, then went to WWE (and subsequently Lucha Underground, AAA, and New Japan) with it back on. He got permission from the Mexico City Wrestling Commission to do so on the grounds that losing it in the first place was forced on him.
In Mexico, masked wrestlers usually keep their identities secret from the public (Pentagon Jr.'s real name, for example, is not public information) and unmasking means revealing who you are, so it’s generally the wrestler’s choice to lose their mask.
“It’s still real to me, dammit!”