CHAPTER FIVE
FOLLOWING A DREAM
Ramon Barreto graduated from John O’Connell High School in 1986. His senior yearbook shows a handsome young man in a tuxedo, smiling with utter joy, and a serious Ramon in a lettermen’s jacket posing with the rest of the student council. High school students are inundated with the question, “What you are going to do now?” Ethnic identity played a significant role in Ramon’s life then as it does today. Ramon is an immigrant who proudly embraces his Mexican heritage, but he is also a proud American. In 2018, at the age of fifty, with growing national discord over the presence of people from Mexico, Ramon did not feel like he completely fit in either country. “Here, I’m not American; I’m still Mexican. Even though I’m here, I’m considered not from this country. And when I go to Mexico, cause of the way I speak, the way I act, they know I’m not from over there. Even when I go there, it’s hard to fit in there, too.” He is a child of two worlds but has never felt fully embraced by either. “It’s kind of hard on both sides.”
Maybe it was that sense of wanting to prove he belonged that led Ramon to a life of public service. After high school, Ramon enlisted in the Army Reserves where he would do eight years in service to his country. The decision to enlist was not an easy one as anxiety over nuclear war remained high. The United States and the Soviet Union were actively engaged in a variety of discussions regarding how to reduce the threat of nuclear war, but the cultural and political climate was uneasy after decades of Cold War posturing. Both sides had a startling number of nuclear weapons, and the possibility of war never seemed unrealistic.
The potential that he could be called into action to fight in a third world war did not deter him from making the decision to enlist. At the age of eighteen, Ramon travelled nearly 3,000 miles to train at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The next eight months transformed the young man in ways he would only later understand. Basic training required rigorous discipline as Ramon and his fellow soldiers rose before the sun to begin being physically and mentally molded into soldiers. Ramon has had a lifelong love of soccer, but the Army’s physical demands exceeded anything he had experienced playing on the field. Soldiers underwent extensive cardio, calisthenics, obstacle courses, and a variety of total body exercises designed to push the young men to work muscles they previously were unaware existed.
The training was also designed to psychologically push the soldiers, breaking down their egos, disciplining them to work as a unit. Much of this military training was designed to break down the soldier, remove distinction by creating uniformity, make the young men obedient, only to start rebuilding them again after graduation from basic training. Ramon was introduced to the power of weapons like the M16, the M60, and grenade launchers. The power he held in his hands gave him a thrill as he felt a surge of adrenaline using them. He had never experienced anything like it in his life and he enjoyed the sensation.
After eight months in New Jersey, Ramon was a soldier ready for action. He returned home and continued his responsibility as a reservist at U.S. Army Camps Parks in Dublin, California. Ramon now understood that he wanted his life to be about public service, but he needed a career beyond the reserves. The Army had demonstrated to Ramon that he had a fearlessness in him when it came to danger. He liked the thrill that came with periods of heightened intensity. He also wanted an opportunity to make good money. The young boy who could not afford to buy wrestling magazines wanted to set himself and his family up for a better future. It so happened that San Francisco needed firefighters.
Being a firefighter in a large city exposed Ramon to nearly everything one might encounter under the sun. By 1987, San Francisco had a population around 700,000 people. Firefighters respond to medical calls, accidents, structural issues, hazmat concerns, smoke sightings, etc., and find themselves running into situations where most others would flee for their lives. Firefighters encounter the hardship and horrors that come with working as a first responder. During his thirty-two-year career, Ramon saved lives and saw the painful reality of death. Drug overdoses, the neglect and death of children, families who had lost everything in a fire; all of this is commonplace for a firefighter in a major city.
A strong support network is essential for first responders to maintain emotional well-being. Ramon was lucky to have a close relationship with his mom and sister, and his family started expanding. Ramon met Sandra and the pair started dating in the late eighties. In 1989 they welcomed a daughter, Annette n Dulce Maria, and the world was coming together for Ramon in a way befitting the American dream. As a firefighter he made good money, with plenty of opportunity for overtime to make even more. He had a steady relationship, a daughter who was the light of his world, and job security. Ramon remained in the reserves through 1994 and by that time he had established himself firmly in the firefighter community. Ramon worked at least two 24-hour shifts a week while his wife had a steady 9 to 5 position.
It was September of 1995 and Ramon was twenty-seven years old when his life underwent a seismic shift. Pacific Coast Sports, now known as All Pro Wrestling, started running advertisements for people to train and become a professional wrestler at their school. Most people in Ramon’s situation would not give the commercial a second or thought, and many would probably have a laugh. Yet, here was a solidly upper-middle class man in a long-term relationship, with a young daughter and steady career, who suddenly felt a flood of memories about his youth, about watching wrestling on television, about first seeing Mil Máscaras. That commercial planted an idea in Ramon’s psyche that did not go away. “Could I become a professional wrestler”?
The cost of training was not cheap: $3,500. Most did not have that kind of money available, and those opted to go on payment plans accrued interest. This was not an obstacle for Ramon who had $3,500 to pay up front. However, he had a significant other and a young daughter. His career was not as much of an obstacle as he worked long shifts, which afforded him more days off at certain time. The school was in Hayward, nearly thirty miles from San Francsico, which in Bay Area traffic could take much longer than a usual thirty-mile commute. Ramon had stayed in good cardio shape through his twenties as he regularly played soccer. While weighing these practical matters, he came back to something from his youth and his memories of wrestling. Ramon thought to himself, “I’m not big enough to be a wrestler.” Ramon Barreto was 5’9” and weighed 175 pounds in 1995, which did not match his vision of wrestlers as taller, hyper-muscular men.
The dynamics of wrestling were transforming at the time, and even in the WWF changes were underway as the United States government had targeted Vince McMahon for facilitating a culture of rampant steroid abuse. Titan Sports fully expected McMahon to be convicted and had begun preparing Jerry Jarrett to take over for him during what they expected to be a lengthy prison sentence. McMahon was stunningly found not guilty in 1994, but awareness of steroid abuse had triggered reforms to at least give the appearance of an effort to crack down on steroid use. This meant that smaller wrestlers, like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, were given opportunities previously not considered during the height of the Hogan era. Ramon also had not realized that the stable of monstrous, oversized men he remembered from the 80s was not the standard physique of smaller promotions.
Setting aside his fears that he would be too small, Ramon took a leap of faith and decided to try the school. His expectation was he would go there on that first day, realize he was too small, see it was not for him, and then continue with his life. His expectations did not meet reality as Ramon realized that he was not significantly smaller than everyone else who came, nor was he even the smallest person. Over his career, he believes he has been about average for the height of wrestlers performing in the smaller venues, though he was certainly on the lighter side in 1995. That initial step to see what training looked like changed everything. He paid his $3,500 and found himself training to become a professional wrestler.
Michael Modest was Ramon’s first trainer and he remembers well those first months of meeting him in 1995. He noted that Ramon was in good shape and had a great attitude, but he was concerned how being a firefighter would impact his wrestling pursuits. “I knew traveling and going balls out for a career in wrestling would be hard for him because he had such a promising career already as a firefighter”. Modest quickly became aware that Ramon was not a quitter, and that Ramon was passionate about U.S. wrestling and Lucha Libre. In fact, from the very moment that Ramon decided to start this journey, he knew that he wanted to be an enmascarado.
It is no secret to wrestling fans how hard these athletes train, though the public is still largely unaware as they believe the choreographed nature of the art nullifies the athletic talent needed. The intensity of Ramon’s training was comparable to what he experienced in the Army. Those first weeks did not involve a single wrestling hold as the new hopefuls needed to have their bodies conditioned in new ways. Running, squats, front shoulder roll left, front shoulder roll right, front flip, repeat, repeat, and repeat again. Then there were the bumps. Learning how to fall is essential to avoiding injury, but that does not mean the bumps do not hurt. Every wrestler agrees they do.
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Ramon’s life started taking on a new dimension. He was a family man, working long, grueling shifts as a firefighter, and now he was going at least twice a week to do wrestling training. His body was constantly sore as he was being conditioned to perform in the ring. Every week he thought he had made a mistake and wanted to give up. Regardless of the hurt and the lost time with his family, he pushed forward balancing these matters with a vision to don a mask like his childhood hero. That vision manifested sooner than he expected.
In January of 1996, four months into his training, Pacific Coast Sport’s founder and owner, Roland Alexander, decided to put Ramon in a show. Four months is a limited timeframe to make the leap from training to the ring. The conditioning had been mixed with amateur wrestling techniques to understand grappling, and how to work side headlocks, front headlocks, and enough moves that Roland felt comfortable bringing Ramon into the show in late January of 1996. Chicano Flame did not exist yet, but there was no doubt that Ramon was going to embrace the mask.
The first attempt at creating a character was to modify an existing mask. Ramon would start his career as a heel, so he chose to adopt a name that he felt embodied the rudo spirit: El Negro Loco. To achieve the outfit, he took a standard black Ray de Jalisco mask with the lightning bolt coming down the middle of the face and removed the lightning. This modification made it a generic black mask, and by adding black boots and arm bands, he had a basic outfit. When asked if he was particularly loco in his character, he laughed and acknowledges that he was not as he did not truly understand the psychology of wrestling at this point.
El Negro Loco was a short-lived concept as a couple of months into his career, the promotion decided to make him a face. Ramon did not think that the name of his first character aligned with the spirit of a técnico, and since he had invested little in El Negro Loco, he took on a new name, El Corazon de Mexico (the heart of Mexico). To achieve the new look, he turned to his childhood hero Mil Máscaras. Purchasing a black and white iteration of the “thousand masks”, Ramon removed the M from the forehead and replaced it with a heart. The modification was simple but effective to achieve a distinction in the masks.
These early trends demonstrate that Ramon was dedicated from the beginning to create an identity that paid homage to his Mexican heritage. Ramon Barreto was approaching thirty at the time and remembered the youthful desire to see people that looked like him wrestling. He never forgot that feeling, and when his opportunity came to wrestle, he wanted to be a luchador to whom other Mexican people would be drawn. The notion that a young Mexican child would be inspired by his appearance resonated with him. El Corazon de Mexico was a fine gimmick to use for the transition, but he needed an identity that connected to who he was and what was important to him.
Ramon was a firefighter and he wanted to incorporate an element of his professional life into the name. He worked out iterations in his mind, thinking about words like blaze or heat. Likewise, he wanted to capture his Mexican-American heritage, which led him back to his youth and the fondness he had for being a Chicano. It was later in 1996 that the name Chicano Flame came into existence, though the true character was not born yet. Black and white promotional photos of Ramon from 1997 show a young, thin luchador, wearing a modified Mil Máscaras mask, and beaming with pride. For Chicano Flame to truly take on a life of his own, Ramon needed a unique mask design that was specific to his character. This would be the final step to truly becoming a unique enmascarado.
As it were, the final stage of creating the lucha character that became a Bay Area wrestling legend would not happen until 1999. It happened in a most remarkable way and set Ramon Barreto on the path to making Chicano Flame the truly unique figure that he became. Yet almost as quickly as that flame began to rise, it started to flicker in a period of darkness that almost ended Chicano Flame and Ramon.
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