Brazo de Oro passes away

Brazo de Oro, 1988

Brazo de Oro, Jesús Alvarado Nieves, passed away early Friday morning from a heart attack.

Brazo de Oro was the first member of the famous Los Brazos trio, and first of the six sons of Shadito Cruz to start wrestling. He was named after a movie (which his father also briefly used), and the name scheme and the word Brazo became associated with his entire family. Brazo de Oro is remembered as part of that trios, but he first found success as a singles wrestler when he was out on his own (winning Texano Sr.’s hair among others and many local championships), and he and Brazo de Plata were a successful tag team as well. Brazo de Oro was believed to be actual best wrestler and best prospect among the young wrestlers for a time, and Dr. Lucha’s obit for El Brazo mentioned there was serious consideration to leaving him as a single and only having him team with his family occasionally (which could’ve led to a Villano III like career.)

Instead, El Brazo completed the trio in 1981, which began as the vicious Los Mosqueteros del Diablo rudos and evolved into a beloved comedy act much later in their career. They were a strong part of the UWA/LLI, and won the promotion’s trios championships three times when it was the most important trios title in Mexico. They also were national trios champions twice. They were a popular act thru the 80s, and among the people featured in rival promotion EMLL when the two groups exchanged talent; their appearances there would’ve been their first national exposure in the US. Brazo de Oro and his brothers also traveled to Japan many times, wrestling tours for All Japan, New Japan, WAR, Michinoku Pro and other promotions as a lucahdor emblematic of the UWA/lucha libre style in Mexico.

Brazo de Oro’s biggest feud was the family feud with Los Villanos. The matches were violent and bloody, a rougher style used by many in the promotion and less so in major lucha promotions today. The rivalry lasted for years (and still gets called back to today) and was heated enough that there were reports of promoters around the country wanting to host the blowoff match. They eventually chose a promoter away from their homebase of El Toreo outside of Mexico City, with the 3v3 mask match taking place in Monterrey on October 21, 1988. The choice of venues and promoters was a mistake: lucha libre rivalries were mostly regional concerns, the match didn’t drew well in Monterrey, and the Brazos claimed they were never actually paid for the mask loss.

Of the three brothers in the primary trio, Brazo de Oro seems like the one most damaged by losing his mask. Brazo de Plata and Brazo were more charismatic luchadors and Brazo de Oro never had the singles success once forecast for him. The trio stuck together even as LLI fell apart, moving to CMLL where they found some success in the early 90s. After a few years, Brazo de Oro turned into the guy with a name who would lose apuesta matches every year or so, first in Arena Mexico and later just about anywhere. CML had a intra-family feud in 1995, with El Brazo splitting from the other two and winning Brazo de Oro’s hair before losing to Brazo de Plata. It seemed to reflect some actual issues between the family members, as El Brazo left CMLL in 1996 never to return and Brazo de Oro remained in CMLL for the rest of his career.

Brazo de Oro remained active thru 2006. I first saw him during those late stages of that career, where he was not much of an exciting luchador and nothing like he had been in his best days, but a name from the past who was kept around to have some experience mixed in with the younger wrestlers. Brazo de Oro announced a retirement around 2006, but of course continued to wrestle from time to time, even being brought back to Arena Coliseo Guadalajara a few times. He would also appear as a corner man for his son La Mascara’s title matches at times, especially early in his career. The last confirmed Brazo de Oro match appears to be a Christmas 2015 match with Brazo de Plata and Robin (filling in for Brazo de Platino) versus Canek, Dos Caras and Mil Mascaras; a lot of Brazo de Oro’s final matches were LLI tribute matches or Villano/Brazo tribute matches. Many of the participants in the match don’t look like they should be still wrestling at that stage, but such is the long lasting popularity of that era of Mexican wrestlers that people will still come out to see them more than two decades after the promotion ceased to exist. Those opportunities to see those wrestlers are shrinking; with also Fishman passing away earlier this month, it feels like those times are beginning to slip away for good.

A 1991 CMLL vignette which frequently gets brought up when talking about Los Brazos. The brothers are having childlike dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. Brazo wanted to be a rock star, Brazo de Oro wanted to be a businessman, and Brazo de Plata dreamed of being Brazo de Plata. The dreams have often been said to be reflection of what they really wanted to be, and Brazo de Oro spent much of his career behind the scenes working on the business of lucha libre. He was part of LLI’s office late in the promotion’s run, then moved over to being the man in charge of wrestler’s union in the CMLL around 1994 when the UWA went rapidly downhill. Last anyone’s said, Brazo de Oro was still in charge of the wrestler’s union, though he’s been also been mentioned as being part of the programming team in the distant past and had appeared as a reserve referee a few times earlier this decade. He likely had other behind the scenes roles.

El Brazo passed away in 2013. Brazo de Plata is now the only remaining member of the famous trio, too hurt to continue wrestling. He hopes for a return, but it’s unclear if it’ll happen. Their brother Brazo Cibernetico/Robin Hood passed away back in 1999. Brazo de Platino and Super Brazo still wrestle on small shows. Brazo de Oro is survived by La Mascara, who’s currently scheduled to main event tonight’s Arena Mexico show. He also appears was at least billed as the father of Brazo de Oro Jr., who wrestled a few shows with Brazo de Oro and continues to wrestle on smaller shows today, but hasn’t been billed as one of his sons in the obits today. The Brazos seemed fond of wrestling, but were also seemed fond (or in need) of making as much money from wrestling as they could, and it was not uncommon for them to license out the Brazo name to non-family members.

CMLL & AAA have already posted condolence message. He’ll be remembered at shows this weekend.

2 thoughts to “Brazo de Oro passes away”

  1. I noticed you put 1950 as the year of birth, and understandably so since it was widely reported. That would have made him 25-26 in his debut and 10-11years older than the next Alvarado. I believe 1950 comes from a typo on Wikipedia where the infgo box said 1950 and the text said 1959 for 8 years.

    That was actually a typo, one I actually introduced by accident.

  2. That’s what happened! We had 1950 on the luchawiki, everyone else had 1959 and I thought we had the typo.

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