E-Mail This Article to a Friend Ladies’ night out Powerbombing on Lansdowne with La Gata Negra BY CAMILLE DODERO
	Related links La Gata Negra Allston-based all-ladies rasslin’ league. Lipstick and Dynamite: The First Ladies of Wrestling An 83-minute documentary about the forgotten first ladies of wrestling that showcases characters like the Fabulous Moolah and the Great Mae Young, who still wrestle at 80 and live together with tiny wrestler sidekick Diamond ’Lil and Gladys ‘Killem’ Gillem who wrestled women, men, alligators and bears. Coolidge Corner Theatre Boston’s only nonprofit independent movie house.

You’d think that women wearing masks and skintight outfits would go over fiendishly well in a club on Lansdowne Street — like Philly cheesecake snuck into a fat camp. But when the fighting ladies of the Allston-based rasslin’ league La Gata Negra (LGN) descended on Embassy last Thursday night, that wasn’t the case. What else could the fiesty gaggle of women wrestlers — okay, the campy, Lucha-inspired group of comic-book-style grapplers — expect when they decided to throw a "bachelorette party" on gay-boys’ night?

It’s not that these gorgeous, be-costumed amazons aren’t working their sex appeal. The lissome dominatrix Mistress Cheetah skulks around in her snug brown-spotted suit, with handcuffs, a whip, and a ball-gag dangling from her belt. Southie-bred siblings called the Irish Twins, a Communist spy named Agent Orange, and Bridezilla, a self-obsessed perpetual bride with a dark side who’s also tonight’s guest of honor, all gyrate on the dance floor. And they’re not just teases. "I’m totally trying to get laid," Bridezilla says delicately.

How did this sweaty horde of costumed lady wrestlers end up in a roomful of chiseled boys grinding away at each other at 90 beats per minute? They suspected that most bouncers wouldn’t let them into a club masked — for fear that they might get into a brawl — but Zorro-masked Izzy Garcia (a/k/a ZAP, short for Zorro Ass Pirate) works the Embassy door when he isn’t acting as ring announcer for the crew. So even though no one bothers to inform Bridezilla that she has a better chance of getting laid at a monastery than at Embassy, this is where the LGN ladies will hold court for the evening.

The Irish Twins — Mary Teresa and Margaret Mary — plop down side-by-side on an oversize U-shaped couch looming above the dance floor. It’s obvious they must be fraternal: their only real resemblances are their thick townie accents, their matching attire (plaid skirts, Red Sox Ts, and knee socks), and the way they sit with their legs open.

"Where’s the keg?" hollers Mary Teresa. "I’ve got Sully’s credit cahd!" Sully, as it turns out, is her locked-up boyfriend, an absent gem of a guy who held up a truck carrying Pokémon cards and got caught. "We’ah engaged to be engaged," she beams.

Bridezilla ruminates about her upcoming marriage. This isn’t her first trip down the aisle, and she won’t divulge anything about her first husband. "I have an order from the court not to talk about him," she seethes, before reminiscing about the tender moment when her fiancé popped the question. "It was so sweet," she says. "I held him at gunpoint."

As buff men slowly trickle onto the dance floor, broadcasting their intentions with tight-fitting Ts that proclaim IT’S NOT EASY BEING EASY and FRIENDS WITH PRIVILEGES, her mind quickly shifts. "Dude, I think all these guys work out." She points at a leatherboy on a riser, who’s in a half-shirt and tauntingly pulling down his shorts. "I might try to get his number. But don’t tell my fiancé or I’ll fuckin’ kill you!"

Funny thing, you never see the entire La Gata Negra league in the same room — and tonight’s no exception. Mary Teresa goes down the list of absentees. La Hornita, a Mexican bee-girl superhero, is at a NAFTA protest. Bridezilla’s Maid of Dishonor just got a really bad perm and isn’t feeling up to going out. Conqueror Worm — who shares striking similarities with Mary Teresa, La Hornita, and Black Cat Burlesque bombshell Miss Firecracker — has simply vanished. As for the Bad Habits, a flying-nun tag team, they don’t hang out in dens of iniquity like Embassy.

So far, the crowd has been staring at the ladies from afar. After all, this is a place where the bartender’s sense of irony is a sleeveless Hooters T, worn the same way hipsters wear gun-store hats (girls are so uncool, they’re cool). Here it doesn’t matter that Mistress Cheetah once powerslammed a Fox 25 news anchor. It doesn’t matter that LGN will be wrestling at the Coney Island museum in August or that they have a show at the Coolidge on Friday. At Embassy, five female wrestlers in masks simply can’t compete with hot guys pulling down their pants.

Finally, a smiling male couple approaches to find out why these women have infiltrated their scene. Bridezilla asks why there are so few women here. They break it to her that all the men here are gay. She starts to scream, so they tell her they’re kidding. She calms down and sighs, "They almost ruined my night!"

Mistress Cheetah contemplates asking strange men to spank the bride. But it’s after midnight, and Bridezilla suddenly announces that she has to teach school in the morning. Mary Teresa doesn’t want to leave. "I’m still hoping to get lucky! I got Sully’s credit cahd!"

La Gata Negra perform this Friday, July 15 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, in Brookline, followed by a documentary screening of Lipstick and Dynamite: The First Ladies of Wrestling (LGN will also perform during intermission). Admission is $9; call 617.734.2501. Camille Dodero can be reached at cdodero[a]phx.com