A nationally known MMA fighter who grew up a few blocks from one of Carpentersville’s fire stations designed this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month T-shirt for the department’s annual fundraiser.
Mando Gutierrez’s T-shirt features a Lucha Libre mask in red, white, and green with CFD’s logo. A Lucha Libre wrestling mask represents Mexico’s cultural heritage and draws spiritual and visual inspiration from ancient Aztec and Mayan warrior traditions, according to luchalibrecdmx.com. The masks are often in bright colors and patterns and use symbols, it stated.
His design represents “our heritage and reminds you of a Latin American country and its people,” Gutierrez said. “I’m a big wrestling fan. I thought it would be something cool, something different,” he said.
The last two T-shirt designs honored Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, so he wanted to do something different, Carpentersville Firefighter Arturo Carrillo said. Carpentersville Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 4790 conducts the fundraiser. Carrillo and Firefighter Tony Ferreiro lead the effort.
“They were really big hits. We kind of have to outdo ourselves every year,” Carrillo said.
“The final product was awesome, phenomenal,” Carrillo said. Gutierrez’s design incorporated the fire department, including CFD’s helmet and shield, along with images associated with the Hispanic culture, he said.
“It’s gonna be hard to outdo this one,” Carrillo said.
A local company, Vicari Prints, prints and distributes the T-shirts. Orders can be made on its website, https://www.vicariprints.com/cvillefdhispanicheritage. T-shirts and other merchandise are available.
Proceeds benefit local community charities, such as Project Fire Buddies. The nonprofit organization helps children battling critical illnesses. CFD has three buddies who live within the village.
Gutierrez got involved after receiving a call from Carpentersville Firefighter Arturo Carrillo. Carrillo reached out after seeing a mural the 29-year-old painted at a friend’s gym.
“I love working on any opportunity that helps the community,” Gutierrez said. “I just wanted to hop onto this opportunity and thought it would be great for me to do.”
The project hit home on many levels. “It’s for Hispanic Heritage Month. It’s for my family. It’s a design I had full creative control over. To me, it felt like I wouldn’t go wrong,” he said.
Gutierrez, who has appeared in Dana White’s Contender Series, is also an artist and barber now based in Lansing, Michigan.
He grew up in Carpentersville. He went to Parkview Elementary School, Carpentersville Middle School, and graduated from Dundee-Crown High School. His family lived on Wisconsin Street, about three blocks from Fire Station #1 on Spring Street.
He comes back to Carpentersville a lot to visit his parents, Jose and Maria Gutierrez, and other relatives.
A wrestler in high school, Gutierrez made the switch to MMA fighting after he graduated.
Wrestling was the only life he knew, he said. “It’s the only sport I played. When I was done wrestling, I had a void I needed to fill. I needed to put all that training into something else,” Gutierrez said.
He took a chance on an MMA career and moved to Lansing to train. Gutierrez signed with the Professional Fighters League (PFL). His record is 11 wins, four losses, according to PFL’s statistics. He’s also been featured in the reality TV show Ultimate Fighter.
While art seems like a world away from an MMA ring, art is the “yin to his yang,” Gutierrez said.
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MMA bouts “free my mind in the same way as art,” Gutierrez said. “Which is funny to say since I’m getting punched” in the ring. “Even though they are very opposite, I get to express myself and be free. I get to be me,” while doing both, he said. “When I’m not doing one, I’m doing the other.
Art has always been part of his life, Gutierrez said. “I’ve been honing my craft since I was a little kid. My style is very strong graffiti-based. I love the graffiti culture. I love the style. I love everything about it,” he said.
He also finds inspiration from Mexico’s Rótulos comerciales, or hand-painted signs, that are considered an art form. The signs are often considered murals.
“A lot of my art has that type of influence,” Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez spent a lot of time in Mexico as a child. His family would go there two or three times a year, he said. He’s also a barber. Gutierrez doesn’t mind juggling three careers.
“I don’t do very well with sitting down,” Gutierrez said. “My parents are the most hard-working people I know. That example has been bred into me my entire life.”
His MMA career has allowed him to travel and experience new things. But he’s also aware that most of his career is in the rearview mirror, he said.
“I want to be done with the game before the game is done with me,” Gutierrez said. “I’m taking every day and enjoying it and living it to the fullest.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.