Lizmark passes away, other notes from the day

Lizmark passed away Wednesday from a heart attack. He was 66 and passed away in Mexico City. Lizmark’s real name is Juan Baños, which wasn’t revealed until his death as he never lost his mask. Lizmark had previous heart issues, retiring for a time in 1999 due to them before coming back, and was largely done with in-ring competition by 2009. (Lizmark’s name has popped up since then, but it’s almost always just confusion with his son.)

Lizmark was born in Oaxaca, but is most associated with Acapulco and it’s said he’ll be buried in the state of Guerrero. The story of the Lizmark name came from the port in that town: a ship was name “Bismark”, and the first letter was changed (either by confusion or by concern of it already being used, depending on the telling) to Lizmark.  Lizmark was billed as one of the cliff divers of Acapulco, who take dangerous jumps into the ocean below. Lizmark started in the local arenas there before coming to Mexico City in the early 80s as a revolutionary high flyer for the time, introducing rope tricks with el Matematico with a graceful style. Lizmark was a multitime world champion when their were many times fewer world championships in Mexico, winning all three NWA championships including the Light Heavyweight championship four times between 1988 and 1992. That domination might have only ended because Lizmark’s stint with CMLL was as well; he joined AAA shortly after, and his national light heavyweight title match with La Parka was one of the bigger matches on the first TripleMania. Lizmark returned to CMLL in 1995, where he was a regular for most of his career (outside of a unmemorable return to AAA for a few months.) Lizmark’s family includes Hijo de Lizmark, who wrestled in CMLL and WCW and is occasionally seen on indie shows. There was also a separate Lizmark Jr. who appeared for a very brief time, and it’s unclear if he was actually related to Lizmark (as it came off as a name rights buying circumstance.)

Dr. Karonte told Furia de Titanes today the cliff diving was always just a story; Karonte claims he (when both were still children) helped out a skinny teenage Lizmark when he got in a fight, then later introduced him Arena Coliseo Acapulco trainer Abundio Radilla, who took him on. Many years later, they met by chance again in Arena Coliseo and Dr. Karonte had no idea his old friend was now top star Lizmark until he unmasked backstage.

CMLL and AAA mentioned his passing, which came out late Wednesday’s night. LuchaWorld has a brief look at his career, SuperLuchas has a longer one and the bio over on LuchaWiki is worth a look if you haven’t read it. El Hijo del Santo mentioned Lizmark was one of his idols when he was getting into wrestling. Furia de Titanes has other wrestlers remembrances.

CMLL interviews Lizmark back in September as part of their series of interviewing former wrestlers. Lizmark was at a retired luchador party this past September. He talked to +LuchaTV earlier this year, saying he was satisfied with his career.

There was a myth that he had died or otherwise stopped wrestling after taking a Styles Clash wrong from Terrible, but he continued on with CMLL for a while after that injury. He left CMLL in early 2007 and spent a couple years doing legends shows before just quietly stopping wrestling. There was no retirement show or grand farewell. There definitely was an impression that Lizmark was staying in wrestling the last few years primarily in hope of getting paid to lose his mask. At one point (2006), there was a plan for something like that – Averno & Mephisto taking Lizmark & Hijo del Lizmark’s masks as a big match – but it never came to pass.

Lizmark started just a few years too early for the first run of matches to be taped. There’s some scattered early ones on YouTube, including this one from 1983. His last CMLL TV match was in 2007 teaming with Mictlan and Satanico against Okumura, Emilio Charles Jr., and Pierroth, but he also appeared a couple years later at a special Luchas 2000 show in the Arena Coliseo.

Lizmark happened to pass away on the same day as Blue Demon did 15 years earlier.

IWRG (WED) 12/16/2015 Arena Naucalpan [Black Terry Jr. (Flickr), Estrellas del Ring, The Gladiatores]
1) Alas de Acero & Aramis b Ángel De La Muerte I & Ángel De La Muerte II
2) Dr. Karonte, Hip Hop Man, Imposible b Kaling Black, Látigo, Rocket Rojo
Dr. Karonte looks like the Mini Karonte from the last Elite show, who may have switched to a non-mini name. Kaling’s first appearance here in over a year.
3) Apolo Estrada Jr. & Eterno b Diablo Jr. I & El Hijo del Diablo
4) Emperador Azteca, Hijo de Mascara Sagrada, Hijo del Alebrije DQ Canis Lupus, Halloween Jr., Tony Rivera
Halloween Jr. fouled Hijo de Mascaa Sagrada. Referee Reyes Rosas was back in this match (on this show), after being off for six weeks after the ending of Castle of Terror. Rudos ended up taking the tecnico’s masks in the post match.
5) Damián 666, Halloween, X-Fly b Argos, Crazy Boy, Danny Casas
Titan & Triton were advertised but didn’t appear (CMLL veto?); IWRG announced Crazy Boy (as an indie) ahead of time and Danny Casas was also added. Damian snuck in a foul on Argos for a win, and lucha extreme challenges followed of course. Money thrown in.

CMLL guys getting pulled hours before the show seems like normal CMLL. Mini Karonte/the current Dr. Karonte/Karonte Jr. is the ex-Mini Murder Clown – the Dr. Karonte article above mentions his four wrestling sons and has Karonte Jr. in the place Mini Murder Clown should be.

Charly Manson credits lucha libre for his early release from prison. Manson said there are two paths you can take in prison: learn from others how to better commit crimes or apply yourself to become a better person. He focused on the latter, eventually starting a sort of wrestling school after being asked for advice from other inmates, and he believes that helped grant him early release for good behavior. Manson said he met many people who were jailed despite being innocent, and he feels his case was not fully investigated as well. Manson says hearing about the death of Perro Aguayo Jr. was the saddest day of his life. Manson’s son was also born around the same time, so he says he had the happiest and saddest days around the same time.

There’s some Lucha Underground news which is really hard to talk about without spoiling things. I’m going to do my best. If you read the results of Sunday’s taping elsewhere, the final match on the final show of the taping ended prematurely due to an apparent leg injury to one of the luchadors. A injury is bad news on it’s own, but that particular wrestler being out of action would’ve required a complete rewrite to the rest of the season. The Wrestling Observer said it’s not as severe as feared, a strain instead of a ligament tear, and the wrestler will be able to return in short order. Lucha Underground tapes in front of a live crowd next on January 9th, which will give the luchador a three weeks to recover.

Everything seems to point to the January 31st taping as Ultima Lucha 2. Lucha Underground puts all their tickets on “sale” at the same time and have done so about two weeks before the first show (the Monday of that previous week.) That would mean the January ticket window opens on December 28th. That’s right dead in the middle of the holidays, so it could change; I’d keep my eye opens this upcoming Monday too if you want to go.

The Observer says the plan is for Season 3 in March but that’s not really new news; every since coming back, they’ve said they want to tape Season 3 after the production crew gets done with taping the Apprentice for NBC and they’re hoping to be done with that in the spring. If they do get season 3, then they’ll be taping months ahead and they’ll probably end up doing more episodes for the Season 2 + Season 3 than they did with Season 1 alone.

There’s still not much new info on the makeup show for Guerra de Titanes (which, again, needs to have a different name for this time only evoking a new beginning.) AAA probably would’ve made an announcement yesterday if there was some news coming on this week’s AAA show. There doesn’t appear to be a MLW Radio show this week as Court and Konnan were likely occupied with the MMA show they did last night, but Konnan mentioned on a previous episode that there’s a show in Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera sometime next month which he couldn’t really talk about. That would make sense for Guerra de Titanes. AAA’s tended to run their TV tapings in that building on Fridays, which would be the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, or 29th. New Year’s Day would’ve been announced by now. The 8th, 15th, and 29th are all the night before a Lucha Underground taping, which doesn’t make it impossible but does make it dates they’d prefer to avoid. January 22nd makes the most sense, but AAA would be short at least a week of TV if it happens (or be airing the show the day after it happens) – there needs to be another taping earlier.

Elite held a press conference to hype Sunday’s card. Doesn’t seem like any news. It does stick out the the future stars of Elite are a lot of the future stars of Todo x el Todo’s TV show (which is a few years ago.) Caristico also appeared on Informa, saying he was not yet a member of CMLL, only making a guest appearance on Friday, but was glad to be welcomed back and would be interested in doing more. He also thanked CMLL owner and Elite owner Ernesto Santillan for allowing him to do this. Box Y Lucha #3214 has the two Misticos on the cover.

LuchaWorld has a recap of the whole CMLL Informa show.

Super Comando says his second choice (behind the Panther) to defeat in the Christmas Day cage match is now Puma. Comando though Puma was “a nice fellow”, but Puma mocked the Panther for not being able to beat a old banged up guy and Super Comando realized Puma meant him! Super Comando is very offended.

El Bisonte lost his mask to Zokar in Cuernavaca and revealed he was Rene Beltran Jayer, son of local luchador el Judio.

RobViper has highlights of 06/16/05 CMLL.

LuchaWorld has KrisZ’s news update.

Guerrero Maya Jr. & T. Panther say they’re working hard for their tag title match on Saturday and all their other big matches coming up in the next month. This Saturday’s show is the one year anniversary of the Retro Sabados shows. Guerrero Maya’s new look wasn’t a return to the facepaint, but a whole new design. It looks very sharp.

Pentagon Jr. will be honored on Friday.

Rafael el Maya complains about things.

Salon Citali will have Gronda & Mr. Jack versus Canek & Fuerza Guerrera on Christmas. That’s the lucha equivalent of coal.

Ohtani’s Jacket watches a match from the 90s Juarez show.