Wrestling mask

A wrestling mask is a fabric based mask that some professional wrestlers wear as part of their in-ring persona or gimmick. Professional wrestlers have been using masks as far back as 1915 and they are still widely used today, especially in Lucha Libre in Mexico.

History

At the 1865 World's Fair, Theobaud Bauer first debuted the mask, wrestling as "The Masked Wrestler" in Paris, France. He would continue wrestling using the mask through out France as part of a circus troupe in the 1860s before moving on the United States in the early 1870s.

In 1915 Mort Henderson started wrestling as the "Masked Marvel" in the New York area making him the first North American wrestler to perform with such a gimmick. In the subsequent years many wrestlers would put on a mask after they had been used in an area, or territory, that their popularity and drawing ability diminished, it would be an easy way for a wrestler to begin working in a new area as a "fresh face". Sometimes workers wore masks in one territory and unmasked in another territory in order to keep their two identities separate.