ECATEPEC, Mexico -- A line is starting to form outside the Arena del Valle, located about 19 miles from downtown Mexico City. It's mid-August, but the temperature outside makes it feel more like a spring afternoon. A multitude of vendors hawk luchador masks, posters and action figures while a man on a bullhorn hypes up the evening. He loudly makes it known that tickets remain for the night's lucha libre event, an unparalleled opportunity considering the participants are the heirs apparent to Penta Zero Miedo, the WWE star and hometown hero who just so happens to own and operate the venue.
Penta isn't physically here on this particular evening, but his presence is palpable. On the LED screen above the ring. On the masks that many of the close to a thousand fans who are piling into the arena chose to wear that night. On the T-shirts of the youngsters who show off their moves during the undercard's first event. They are students in the lucha libre school Penta founded just a few years ago.
That all of this is happening in Ecatepec -- a national poll conducted in July indicated that 85% of the municipality's 1.6 million residents feel vulnerable to crimes such as armed robbery and property theft -- is no coincidence. Rather, it is Penta's longtime promise coming to fruition, a promise made when he himself was just a young boy roaming these very same streets and dreaming of a life as a professional wrestler. Any glimmer of success, he decided then and there, would be used as a vehicle to give back to his community so anyone wishing to follow in his footsteps wouldn't have to struggle as much as he did.
"I stand by the people [of Ecatepec], not because I can't go anywhere else, but because they've been there for me since Day 1," said Penta, who keeps his real identity a secret in true lucha libre tradition. "Maybe they themselves don't know, but for me it's like I never left the neighborhood."
Penta, who discussed his journey with ESPN for Hispanic Heritage Month, does occasionally leave the neighborhood to delight crowds in locales as far flung as Las Vegas or Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. However, a bumpy road to the top that would see him dragged back to the starting line is enough, he says, to keep him humble and hungry for more.
Along the way, he turned his biggest defeat into a victory.
Choices and consequences
For Penta, growing up in Ecatepec -- a sprawling suburb of Mexico City where poverty rates climbed from 2010 to 2020 -- meant sacrifice and hard work were expected. His father sold tacos from a food cart, prompting Penta to vow that he would one day gift his father his own brick and mortar restaurant. Penta himself learned the family trade, but his attention was always fixed elsewhere, and specifically on wrestling.
"As kids, [my brother and I] broke everything in our house. Beds, couches, everything," Penta said.
When Penta and his younger brother, known to lucha libre fans as Rey Fénix, decided to get serious about training to be luchadores, they soon discovered Ecatepec had no dedicated schools of its own, prompting near-daily trips to Mexico City. Such trips meant enduring long days to accommodate work and play. For about a decade, the two brothers would sleep only a handful of hours each night in order to complete their daily routine and make headway as wrestling students hoping to turn pro.
"I would go to work at 3 or 4 in the morning, and clock out at 4 or 5 in the afternoon," Penta said. "I would go home, eat something and then at about 7 o'clock I'd go and train until about 11. Then I'd go home, have dinner and go to bed."
The years of toil weighed on Penta, and he considered other ways to make a better living. An acquaintance had made it to the U.S. as an undocumented worker and urged him to do the same. After a long trip to Mexico's northwest corner, Penta was led to the border crossing between the town of Sonoyta in the state of Sonora and Lukeville, Arizona.
However, Penta soon found himself lost amid the harsh, endless landscape of the Sonoran Desert, walking aimlessly for an entire week. Eventually, he turned himself in to the authorities on the U.S. side, exhausted and dehydrated.
"I think it's the biggest defeat of my life," Penta said. "I still had not debuted as a pro wrestler; I was still training for that shot. And so, like so many others who try and chase the American dream, I was told there was work out there, and I made the wrong choice of attempting to cross illegally into the United States."
Getting back on track
Upon his return to Ecatepec, Penta clung to the hope of making it as a luchador. Less than a month after returning from the desert, Penta was tapped to debut in front of a crowd.
"At the small gym I trained in, I was told to buy a uniform and a mask for myself," he said. "I don't know what would've happened [if I had made it to the U.S.]. Perhaps there wouldn't even be a Penta, because I would've stayed there and worked a regular job."
To evaluators in Mexico's sprawling lucha libre industry, Penta's talent was apparent early on. After his debut in 2007, he reached AAA, one of the country's top two promotions. There, he won the Latin American Championship and the World Mixed Tag Team Championship. He also conquered the World Tag Team Championship alongside his brother.
Known first as Zaius or Dark Dragon, the luchador found his more famous alter ego in 2012, billed initially as Pentagón Jr. and later modified to Penta or Penta Zero Miedo, which adds his catchphrase. In 2014, he was signed on to Lucha Underground, a project housed entirely in the U.S. The opportunity prompted Penta to make amends with his past upon requesting a legal visa to work in the country, which was granted.
"As a luchador, [Penta] is very good. He does his job the right way," said Roberto Rivero, better known as Nenuco, who has crafted Penta's uniquely popular masks for nearly two decades. "I can honestly say there would be no Penta without Nenuco, but also there would be no Nenuco without Penta."
Penta's other stints in the U.S. include Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Major League Wrestling, Impact Wrestling and All Elite Wrestling. His growing popularity with wrestling fans has garnered admirers of all types, including San Francisco 49ers star tight end George Kittle, who began to replicate Penta's famous hand signal and catchphrase, which means "zero fear."
"I said to myself, I have to come up with something like those hand signs we have in the barrio, you know?" Penta said. "So, I tried to figure out how to do the number zero and the letter M all at once. Now, I throw it up right in the face of other wrestlers."
His budding success allowed Penta to return focus to his hometown and make good on the promises he had made. In 2024, Penta opened his first restaurant in honor of his father, the former taco vendor. Inside the restaurant, customers are greeted with a veritable lucha museum: masks, championship belts, a number of signed pictures and gushy quotes from wrestlers who have faced Penta over the years. A few blocks from the restaurant, Penta owns and operates a gym that offers personalized lucha libre instruction, boxing classes and MMA lessons.
"I like to say, over there [in the restaurant] we make them eat, and over here [in the gym] we get them back in shape," Penta said with a laugh.
Reaching the mountaintop
Penta's deal with AEW reached its conclusion toward the end of 2024. In his mind, there was only one option to continue climbing the ladder. As an amateur, Penta was a fan of Mexican American wrestler Rey Mysterio Jr., one of WWE's longtime favorites.
In January, Penta was officially signed to the WWE, making his debut on Monday Night Raw with a win over Chad Gable. Upon his introduction to the crowd, the thousands in attendance at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, cheered him on as he flashed the Zero Miedo sign and shimmied toward the ring.
"It's been over 20 years of hard work and sacrifice just to get here," Penta said, recalling the moment. "And of course I enjoy it, but this isn't the end of the story; it's the beginning."
In his debut year as a WWE talent, Penta has shown up in some of the promotion's most emblematic events such as Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, with flocks of new fans joining those who have followed the Mexican wrestler for years. Penta's iconic mask initially sold out when first offered on the WWE website. A litany of other products bearing his name and image are also popular.
It would seem, then, that Penta has reached the rarefied air of his profession. He now hopes his success, as well as his continued presence in Ecatepec and Mexico in general, will inspire the next generation of luchadores, as Rey Mysterio and others did for him. The difference is those budding wrestlers in his hometown won't have to travel very far to receive the appropriate instruction.
That's why at the Arena del Valle, just a few miles from Penta's childhood home, those who know and have known him since before he became a star hold him in high regard. Not just the luchador himself, but also the man behind the mask.
"He makes you believe that if he can make it, you can make it," said Intenso, a masked luchador from Ecatepec who wrestles regularly at the Arena del Valle. "I've known Penta for about five years now. I've watched him work and loved how he fulfilled each one of his objectives. I've practiced Jiu Jitsu for 18 years and was inspired to wrestle because of him, mostly."
About 20 students wait patiently inside the ring for a chance to display their moves to the crowd. Even if it takes them a second or third try to correctly execute the technique, those in attendance cheer them on. After all, you never know if you could be watching the next lucha libre star from Ecatepec.
"It doesn't matter if today I work for the best wrestling promotion in the world or if I'm a little more famous," Penta said. "I'm the same person. I make Penta. Penta doesn't make me."