In a recent interview as part of the AEW Unrestricted podcast, All Elite Wrestling star Fuego del Sol discussed several topics, including his decision to wear a mask after making several appearances unmasked for different promotions.

“I trained down south in the Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida area, back and forth with a guy named Josh Pain, he broke me into the business, he connected me with the Armstrong family, Bullet Bob, I unfortunately started training after Brad passed away, but I have so much love and admiration for Brad’s work. They looked at me and looked at my size, I was even smaller then than I am now, I started when I was 17 of 18 years old.

They way I moved, they said that reminded them of a young Rey Mysterio. I’ve always been a giant fan of Rey Mysterio and they said, if you want to do this, you need to do it right, let me put you in a mask, it will hide your size, it will add a different element for people to focus on instead of your size. They saw it with Rey Jr, they said it will help you until you put on the size that you need to put on, they won’t just see you as this young small guy, they will see you with at least some it factor with the mask on.

I had to do it the right way and I had to go train lucha to do that, they hooked me up with some guys in Florida, I also got to go to Mexico for a little bit in Monterrey and earned the mask and the name Fuego del Sol. I was also a fan of lucha libre, training in lucha I fell in love with the culture. At first, I always thought of this as a stepping stone, I would wear it for a bit, gain experience and then move on with my career, but I slowly gained some traction and people started to like me. As the bookings started coming in and the money is coming, sometimes you don’t want to switch things up, I felt like I was so in love with the culture, I wanted to continue with it, but I felt like I was pretending to be something I’m not, speaking a little bit of Spanish that I knew, pretending to be from Mexico, I didn’t like it, I thought I could either twist the mask up, or I could do something completely different.

You’re never going to meet another luchador from Mobile, Alabama. It’s funny on the surface, I get it, I understand it’s a funny thing on the surface, but once you get in there, you see me work, then you hear me talk and you hear my passion. The business is very surface level, people look at your size, people look at your look, people listen to the way you talk at first and they like to make assumptions and paint you in a box. You can’t paint Fuego del Sol in a box, you can’t put Fuego in a corner, I’m going to be something new, I’m going to be something different, I’m going to be my own thing. I like to say yeah, I know it’s funny on the surface, Fuego del Sol, the luchador from Alabama, Alabama’s number one luchador, something you’ve never seen before and will probably never again, but I’ll be that.”

The full interview is available at this link.