Some news from last week’s Observer:
Good crowds continue as the 9/24 Arena Mexico show (headlined by Negro Casas vs. Perro Aguayo Jr) drew 8,500, while the 10/1 show (with Atlantis & Santo & Mistico & Casas vs. Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero & Tarzan Boy & Averno on top) drew 9,000.
Some more notes on the original Dr. Wagner:
The name Dr. Wagner came about in 1962, when North Mexico promoter Elias Simon wanted Manuel Gonzalez to take the name El Hijo del Medico Asesino (the original MA had died two years prior). But Gonzalez didn’t want to be the fake son of a wrestler.
Later, Gonzalez was either listening to music by composer Richard Wagner, or reading a book about him, and came up with the name Dr. Wagner. Interestingly, there was already a Dr. Wagner in Mexico who used the name back in 1941 and didn’t last long.
Talking about the original Medico Asesino, Meltzer notes there were tons of copies over the years, and “the idea of an evil doctor who laughed about screwing up paitents went back years in Lucha Libre tradition.” Someone should write a research paper about that.
Dave also had an obit on Enrique Yanez, who went by Enrique LLanes (so it would be easier for the fans to remember). He and Tarzan Lopez were a top tag team known as La Pareja Ideal (the Ideal Pair). Some interesting tidbits.
–He was working as a locksmith when he started watching the early days of lucha. He idolized Lopez, and when they met, Lopez agreed to train him as a wrestler while LLanes returned the favoe and trained Lopez to be a locksmith.
–Llanes was best friends with Gori Guerrero, and in fact Guerrero married Llanes’ sister Herlinda, who was on Smackdown a few months back having a heart attack thanks to JBL. The Guerrero-Llanes family may very well be the most successful in history, as besides all the Guerreros, Enrique’s brother Mario and Sergio, along with son Javier, all went on to become decent sized stars in the business.
–He had a tournament match with Lopez that was so good, fans pelted the ring with money afterwards. The tournament was to get a #1 contender for Sugi Sito’s NWA World Middleweight title, at the time the most important belt in Mexico. Llanes won the tournament and later the title.
–Best story ever. He had a mask vs. hair match with the original Santo on July 3, 1949 in Arena Mexico. Santo won, of course, but the match was so emotional fans stormed the ring and carried LLanes backstage to avoid the haircut. Booker Francisco Flores told him to go back out and get his hair cut, but the fans blocked the aisle. When he got home, his mother started crying because she saw he had his hair and thought he unmasked Santo. When he told her what happened, she told him he had to live up to the stipulations and made him shave his head right there. As Dave asks, “where are mothers like that in wrestling today?”