Tag: rip

Fishman passes away

thecubsfan 1 Comment
Fishman

Fishman, José Ángel Nájera Sánchez, passed away on Saturday. He had just reached his 66th birthday on Thursday.

Fishman was born in Torreon, but started wrestling and first grew to fame as a Juarez luchador. He’d return to that city often in his career. He became a national star in Arena Mexico in the late 70s, with his iconic green and yellow mask standing out on magazines. (It’s a mask that resonates even today; when Daga & Garza did their run-in debut on The Crash a few months ago, they picked Canek and Fishman’s masks becuase they look cool.) Fishman won the masks of El Faraon, Sangre Chicana and Cobarde I, three luchadors who would go onto have long and important careers, in the span of 16 months. He also defeated Blue Demon twice for titles, first for the NWA Welterweight Championship and later for the national version, in that same period of time.

Fishman jumped to the rival UWA promotion, where he was consistently among the top light heavyweight stars thru the 80s as both a tecnico and a rudo. He traded wins and championships with Perro Aguayo, Villano III, and old rival Sangre Chicana, and headlined many shows during the strongest period in the history of the company. He was an opponent for foreign wrestlers when they came to UWA, and was brought to the US and Japan as a visiting star.

Fishman’s drop off mirrored the UWA. Fishman actually was part of the original group of luchadors in AAA, but his (by then) slower style didn’t work in that context or on TV. Fishman had stretches in both AAA & CMLL thru 2000, but generally as a name from the past rather than an important star of the moment. Fishman lost his mask in 2000 to Mascara Sagrada, the main event of a short lived promotion GWAS, with a disappointing turnout and suggestions Fishman wasn’t paid what he was promised for the match.

Fishman hasn’t been forgotten by lucha libre, but his place at the end probably wasn’t what he was expecting when he was main eventing packed El Toreo shows. If UWA had survived, he probably would’ve been brought back forever as a star of their best days. Without his home promotion, Fishman wasn’t afforded the same long term high respect as a Canek. His mask match wasn’t the memorable classic that gave a reason for people to always remember him like Villano 3’s. Instead, Fishman was sort of a relic of a bygone era, still a huge star to people who followed and admiring lucha libre of that time but not meaningful to younger generations. He spent the last few years of his active career wrestling for small independents, for promoters who remembered the name. He teamed with one son as Hijo de Fishman for a time, then stripped him (the current Black Fish) of the name after a falling out and gave another son the name. Fishman was still listed on shows as recently as last year, though some of those may have been his son being listed under his name.

There’s no details on Fishman’s funeral service.

AAA’s Joaquin Roldan has passed away

thecubsfan 1 Comment
Joaquin Roldan

AAA announced Joaquin Roldan passed away early this morning. He was 63.

Roldan, the brother in law of AAA founder Antonio Peña, had been involved with AAA for about 20 years. He was a lawyer and worked in that role in his first years in the promotion. Roldan took over operation of the promotion when Peña suffered an illness and passed away in 2007 2006. Joaquin, his wife Marisela (Peña’s sister) and their son Dorian became the public face of the promotion in Antonio Peña’s absence. (Joaquin is also survived by a daughter who’s helped with AAA but in a less public role.) It’s believed Marislea was given ownership of AAA by her brother, but Joaquin was person running the promotion due to social norms of Mexico. Joaquin may have had the most power of the family members, but it seemed like the big decisions were things the family made as a unit.

Joaquin Roldan is also one of the people responsible for Lucha Underground existing. He owns some part of the promotion, and is visible sitting in the crowd on the first few tapings.

Joaquin Roldan was also the onscreen face authority figure for many years, feuding with Dorian Roldan & Konnan constantly. The rudos were always kept strong for the perennial blow-off down the line, so Joaquin was often outmaneuvered by his opponents between a few victories. Roldan broke his nose when he was tripped into a turnbuckle at one TripleMania, was tricked into having his head shaved at another TripleMania, vowed La Sociedad would be gone forever from AAA really soon a few times. Roldan didn’t seem comfortable in his role at first, but grew to like it and improved in the role. He appeared much less in that role the last couple years, with AAA dropping the feuding family members after Konnan left the company. Marisela continued to sit in the front row as the face of AAA, and Joaquin appeared to be backstage helping run the TV tapings.

Joaquin had not been seen at AAA events as much in recent months. He was at the Psycho Clown/Dr. Wagner contract signing press conference, and was part of the remembrance of Chavo Guerrero Senior. I’m not sure if he had been at the La Llave de la Gloria tryouts or the work AAA did on the movie, but those all fell under the idea of “new projects” that Dorian would be leading on. There was no outward sign something was wrong, but now I look back at Joaquin looking a little thinner and tired at that contract signing and wonder if wasn’t because it was a trying week, but because of health issues. (Plantilla Deportiva says a source has told them Joaquin died of cancer, which would certainly fit. Edit: Arturo Rivera also said it was cancer.) Joaquin was put in AAA’s Hall of Fame last year at TripleMania by Marisela & Dorian, something that seemed a little tone deaf at the time. Maybe they knew, and wanted to make sure he had a moment of recognition.

The Roldans are holding a wake for Joaquin Roldan today at the Capilla de Gayosso funeral home in Mexico City.

Thunder (1981-2016)

thecubsfan 4 Comments
Thunder's cradle suplex, from one of his last TV matches.
Thunder’s cradle suplex, from one of his last TV matches.

Thunder passed away on Thursday. His real name was Luke Fordward and he was 34*. He passed away after a battle from stomach cancer back in his home country of Australia.

Fordward started on local indies under both his real name and “Taipan”. He spent some time in Super Delfin’s Okinawa Pro wrestling in 2010 and 2011, usually facing “Kijimuna” – a friend from Australia who now wrestlers under the name Ryukyu-Dog Dingo. The two had been partners in Australia as the Croc Masters. Taipan returned to Australia and perhaps might have never left that area of the world for wrestling if not for a chance meeting. He met a vacationing Mexican named Daniela, they became romantically involved, and she convinced him to move back to Mexico with her and to train lucha libre under her father. Daniela’s father is the legendary Satanico – Daniela herself was an edecan for a time – and there are few better people to teach someone lucha libre.

Fordward debuted in CMLL at the start of 2013. He was first billed as Thunderbird, though quickly shortened to Thunder (perhaps because someone else had the name.) The masked Thunder was introduced in a series of vignettes, which was doubly strange at the time – CMLL never did vignettes and never brought in foreigners. It only started to make sense some months later when his relationship leaked out. Thunder began as a tecnico, and made sense as an idol on paper. He had uncommon height for Mexico, a bodybuilder’s physique and some surprising athleticism – his dive looked great, when they had enough people to safely catch him. It just never clicked for Thunder in the ring, as he looked slow and had trouble grasping the lucha libre style.

CMLL tried very hard with Thunder for about three years. They pushed him strong while protecting him from being exposed in singles matches. When he didn’t catch on as a tecnico, they took him out of the ring for a while and brought him back as a menacing rudo teamed with Ultimo Guerrero.  When that didn’t work, they had him feud with Ultimo Guerrero. When that didn’t work, CMLL seemed ready to cut their loses and get a mask match out of him, but even that didn’t work out. Thunder likely would’ve lost his mask at last year’s Anniversary show had Sombra not decided he was going to WWE. Thunder was announced to be defending (and likely losing) his mask this past Christmas, but the match was replaced by others.

Thunder publicly vented after having the mask match pulled for (at least) the second time, complaining about CMLL on Facebook. He disappeared for a short time, but returned and was wrestling as recently February. Thunder’s final match was teaming with Dragon Rojo & Polvora against Mr. Niebla, Niebla Roja and Euforia. It came after an odd week where Thunder had two singles matches – a win over Euforia and his first ever loss (by DQ) to Rush – which were as many as he had the rest of his CMLL career.

Thunder’s career was marked by periods where he’d just be inexplicably missing from lineups, and it’d be later explained that he had some sort of injury, usually with his knee. This was assumed to be the same situation, and he’d occasionally be mentioned on CMLL Informa as out with an injury or having had surgery. It’s being reported now that Thunder quit CMLL at that time. (My guess is he was told the mask match wasn’t happening at Dos Leyendas either and walked out, but I’m not sure.) Satanico also appears to have broken off ties with CMLL at some point over the last few months, as indicated by his appearance at the Lucha World Cup.

Thunder returned to Satanico & Daniela’s hometown of Guadalajara, and then eventually his own home in Australia as the cancer got worse. It’s unclear when he was diagnosed. Medical sites say stomach cancer is both a relatively rare cancer and one that’s tough to detect until it’s far along. News reports say the cancer developed in less than a year. It’s a possible it may have been something he may have been deal with for a while, back as far as when started wearing a strange black padding or belt around his stomach area that was never explained. Still, he seemed in normal condition as recently as five month ago and it’s incredible how much things have changed.

Word started to go around the Australian wrestling community of Taipan being in bad shape in the last month. No one from the Mexican side had worked out his previous identity, so it wasn’t until the last few days where it was the dots got connected and it was revealed how dire the situation was.

I mean no disrespect, by my favorite memory of Thunder is the time Rob trolled him into swearing at him at last year’s Anniversary. That’s really what I wanted out of that moment, and Thunder delivered. To us, on this side of the curtain, Thunder was an obstacle to the kind and quality of wrestling matches we were hoping to see. On the other side of curtain, his fellow luchadors remember just as a friend. Magnus recalled a moment where he was knocked out, and the only guy try to keep him awake was Thunder. Alexis remembered how nervous Thunder was when they were shooting those first vignettes and revealed Thunder was originally planned to be in this Gran Prix. Marco and Dark Angel and Shocker and Rush and Dragon Rojo and many others expressed their sadness at this sudden news. It’s a shock when someone this young dies from illness, especially when they seemed perfectly fine such a short time ago.

Thunder will be remembered at tonight’s show with a moment of applause.

(* – I had 35, but his birthday isn’t until October.)

Perro Aguayo Jr. has passed away

thecubsfan 28 Comments

Pedro Aguayo Ramirez, Perro Aguayo Jr., passed away early this morning. He was 35. Perro suffered fatal injuries during Friday night’s match in Tijuana. Reports indicate a ring rope snapped into his throat or head, and he fell to the mat unconscious.  It was originally believed he was just selling, but he’d actually been knocked unconscious. Perro was rushed to the Del Padro hospital, and pronounced dead early Saturday morning.

There is video. I’m not going to be watching it or linking to it.

Perro is the second AAA employee to pass away tragically within days. Perro was a lynchpin of AAA, the led heel, the man all the big feuds for the future were built around and leader of the biggest heel group, a group that had spanned both CMLL and AAA. Perro was a person who had way too much life left for him to leave now – as a individual, as a family man.

This is a nightmare.

Update (11:48): MedioTiempo has an article with quotes from the Tijuana lucha commission doctor. Everyone watching the video, and watching live, observed there was no doctor’s aid right away and a makeshift stretcher. (In the video, Konnan appears to be the first to notice something’s horribly wrong.) The doctor explains there had been two other injuries on the card, including a spinal one, and the doctors were still treating them. The doctor says there were two ambulances present. It sounds like the spinal injury person was still on the stretcher, so the idea was to get Perro out of the ring as quick as possible with whatever they had. Perro was moved onto a stretcher before they got him into the ambulance.

Perro was worked on for an hour at the hospital, with a team of doctors trying to figure out what they could do, before they declared him dead. The official cause of death is “raíz de un golpe que tuvo en la región cervical”, which I believe translates to a spinal stroke.

Updated (2:00): Wrestling Observer says the doctor at the hospital called the injury as “cervical spine trauma”, believed to come from one of the two impacts of the rope into his throat. The doctor was unsure which one, though it appears it’s more likely the first.

Updated (3:30): A fan in attendance says he never saw someone taken to the back on a stretcher, which would dispute the commission’s claim about having adequate medical coverage. It’s still possible someone could’ve made it to the back and then put on a stretcher due to an injury.

This story has understandably gotten mainstream and worldwide attention, largely due to the videos of Perro’s death being available. There’s a lot of people looking into this; I think we’ll know the truth of the medical situation quickly.

Updated (4:00): Record reports the Baja California Attorney’s General has announced an investigation into the death. It’s exactly what you’d expect for this high profile of a death.

Updated (6:30): AAA’s TV show was preceded by a news report from Televisa Deportes, talking about Perro Aguayo Jr.’s life and death. Footage for the Tijuana was used. The show led off with a brief tribute to Irma. Perro Jr.’s match is still scheduled to air as the TV main event.

The Crash promoter says Perro Aguayo Sr. has not been informed of his son’s passing, for concerns of his own health. There has been a consistent rumor for months that Perro Aguayo Sr. is in bad physical and especially mental shape, and this would be the first time someone’s acknowledged the situation publicly.

The Crash also maintained that what happened an accident, and had nothing to do with the wrestlers. The promoters expect to be interviewed as part of the investigation, but believe everyone did their job properly.

The funeral will take place tomorrow in Guadalajara, by request of the mother. The Crash says they are paying all expenses to transport Perro’s body.

An ESPN medical doctor, observing the situation only from video, believes Perro died instantly on hitting the ropes, his vertebrae dislodged by the impact.

Updated (7:00): The Tijuana commission laid out a timeline claiming it Perro Aguayo Jr. was taken to the hospital within six minutes of the injury. The hospital is two streets away from the arena. That report says Perro technically died of cardiac arrest. I assume that came about because of his other injury, but I’m not a doctor.

The commission also says, previously on the show, three luchadors had previously been taken to the hospital.

Updated (9:10): MedioTiempo’s latest report includes the doctor stating Perro Jr. still had vital signs when he was taken to the hospitals. Theories from others about Perro being instantly dead when the rope hit him appear to be incorrect.

The confirms the commission report that the Perro Jr. officially died in the hospital of a cardiac arrest, likely brought on by the neck injury. (The article also mentions respiratory arrest. I’m unsure if there’s meant to be difference.)

The attorney general has ordered an autopsy, which includes standard drug tests. It’s unknown how this affects plans to transport his body back to Guadalajara ASAP.

Updated (Sunday 12:30): The funeral wake was held earlier this morning. Perro Sr. was in attendance. Contrary to earlier reports, luchador Medico Asesino Jr. says he tried to contact Perro Sr. to tell him about Perro Jr.’s injury during the hour he was being treated in the hospital, looking for advice on what they should do, but saying he only got as far as Perro’s secretary.

Miguel Fonesca, while explaining that the Crash was an independent show which had nothing to do with AAA outside of using two of it’s wrestlers, said there will be a tribute show to Perro Aguayo Jr. at some point. It’s too soon to say when that’ll happen.

Universal has a story with Perro Sr.’s half brother, Juan. He talks about the death, and says Perro Jr. wanted to be a luchador since he was seven. His father tried to push Perro Jr. in other directions, but he was set on it.

Lawyers are trying to get involved. Even regional politics at this point; the Tijuana newspaper is carrying the word of the commission that everything was done as it should, and the Guadalajara papers are bringing in experts to talk about all the things which were done wrong in Tijuana.

There are various infographics and pictorials of Perro’s death, with so many people weighing in on what happened. It’s reached the point of diminishing returns.

El Brazo (1961-2013)

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El Brazo, Juan Alvarado Nieves, passed away Tuesday night. Reports say he was in a diabetic coma since Sunday. He was 62.

El Brazo

El Brazo followed his father, luchador/referee Shadito Cruz, into a lucha libre career. He was the middle brother of the three most famous Brazos – Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata and El Brazo – but the last of those original three to debut. Many more would follow. The brothers formed the “Mosqueteros del Diablo”, a hard brawling rudo side which made it’s name in the 80s UWA. Their family versus family mask match against the Los Villanos is one of the most famous matches of that era.

The Brazos lost their masks and changed as a team. The trio became more comedic, the other two playing off Brazo de Plata’s natural charisma. Their family had long history in UWA and were very loyal, but decided to move to EMLL in 1991 (right before the UWA started going down.) The trio turned tecnico and remained were a regular act in EMLL/CMLL after AAA started. The trios broke up and faced each other in hair matches in 1995. El Brazo was the rudo, and defeated his brother Brazo de Oro in a three way hair match with Brazo de Plata.

El Brazo left CMLL in 1996, permanently splitting the famous trio. There’s always been a suggestion he had some falling out with his brothers, but I’m not sure if that’s true or what the details were. El Brazo would never return to CMLL while Brazo de Oro has forever stayed connected with the promotion, though it does appear they teamed on indy shows a little. El Brazo jumped to Promo Azteca for a couple years, then floated around the indies.

El Brazo joined AAA in the early 2000s and worked a variety of roles in AAA, including the standard creative Antonio Pena character (Tio Lucas), and was moved to an veteran role to work with youngsters. In recent years, he’s been a member of Los Guapos (feuding with Brazo de Plata in his one year visit to AAA), a luchador doing impersonations of other characters (most frequently the Latin Lover parody named Latin Broiler), and an exotico as La Braza. El Brazo had not been in a TV match since February 2012, but continued wrestling on off TV events. Brazo lost his hair once again last month in an all exoticos cage match, and wrestled semi-frequently in Arena Cuatro Caminos in Nuevo Laredo. Brazo had also transitioned to a behind the scenes role, representing the AAA office on those spot shows.The entire family was brought together once again for a all Alvarado charity show earlier this year. El Brazo was not allowed to work the show (they could not get the CMLL family members if the AAA were in matches), but the trio stood in the ring together, for what would become the final time.El Brazo is survived by his wife and children. A El Brazo Junior has wrestled in recent years, most frequently in IWL, and has been billed as the son of the original. El Brazo is the second Brazo brother to die – Brazo Cibernetico/Robin Hood passed away in 1999.

Both CMLL and AAA will honor El Brazo at their events this Friday. In a coincidence, both shows include Brazo family members in major roles. Brazo de Plata puts his hair on the line in a Super Libre Plus match, drawing on those old days as a rough brawler. Psycho Clown challenges for the AAA Mega Championship, and has reminded Texano how he was scared of the Devil’s Musketeers when he was little and should be equally scared of Psycho Clown. Both figure to be emotional matches under the circumstances.

No funeral arrangements have been announced.

Dr. X/Dr. X-Treme (1968?-2011)

thecubsfan 12 Comments
(picture via R de Rudo)

Long time CMLL rudo and recently independent luchador Dr. X (or Dr. X-Treme) was reportedly murdered earlier this morning. He was 41. According to SuperLuchas note, he was shot at a party. Enrique Yniesta originally mentioned this story on Twitter.

More when details become available.

12:30 PM: news on the shooting here and here. The second article lists Dr. X’s name as Clemente Marcelino Valencia Nájera, and all articles now have him as 43 years old. Dr. X was just at a party with his friends and family when a brawl broke out. He was not the intended target of the shooting, was shot in the head, and died before he reached the hospital. No suspects are in custody.

AAA has put up a message of sympathy on their facebook page. Meanwhile, at least of right now, CMLL is listing Dr. X as working a show he was never going to be on.

IWL has also posted a note on their facebook account.