The WWE versus CMLL and AAA

The closest I wanna see WWE and Lucha Libre, Shelly Martinez and Vampiro

Well, the WWE has moved into Mexico and are ready to go up against Asistencia Asesoria y Administracion and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre.
Last month WWE Smackdown's debuted on Azteca TV and was the most-watched TV program in prime time from Oct. 3 to 19.
The show drew a 9.0 rating and over 1.2 million TV households tuned in.
WWE Raw debuted on Sunday, Oct. 5 on Televisa to similar results.
I really hope this is a " Interest Factor", people watching WWE just to see what its all about, because I don't see how this would be good for Lucha Libre.
Of course Lucha's storylines are just as exaggerated as the WWE's, but Lucha in Mexico is tradition.
I'd hate to see CMLL and AAA go they way of ECW here in the US. Seeing WWE buy out the two big companies would just give you a watered down version of each.
I shudder to think of " WWE CMLL" or " WWE Friday Night AAA".
I know many of the WWE stars are wildly popular in Mexico and as long as WWE stays a separate entity things may be okay.
But I'd hate to see the memories of El Santo, Mil Máscaras or Blue Demon lumped in with the Billy Gunn and Chuck Palumbo affair, the Fake Kane or the Red Rooster someday.

Lucha Libre Legend, Santo, part 4

Santo wound up appearing in a total of 52 films in all, two of which were just cameo appearances. The style of the movies was essentially the same throughout the series, with Santo as a superhero fighting supernatural creatures, evil scientists, various criminals/ secret agents and so on. The tones were reminiscent of U.S. B-movies and TV shows, perhaps most similar to the old Republic Pictures serials of the 1940s.

His best-known movie outside of Mexico is also considered one of his best, 1962s Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro (Santo vs. the Vampire Women), which was also featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. In this movie, the production values were better, and there was an attempt at creating more a mythos and background for Santo, as the last of a long line of fighters against evil. It was an enormous success at the box office, and was one of the 4 Santo films ever to be dubbed in English.

 Some of these English films were imported to the United States through the efforts of K. Gordon Murray who changed the name of Santo to Samson for some of his releases. Santo's most financially successful film however was "The Mummies of Guanajuato" (1970), which co-starred Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras. Many Mexi-movie fans consider it to be the greatest Mexican wrestling film ever made.

The Santo film series inspired the production of similar series of movies starring other well-known Mexi-wrestlers such as Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, Superzan and the Wrestling Women, among others. Santo even co-starred with Blue Demon & Mil Mascaras in several of his movies. When Blue Demon invited Santo to co-star with him and Mil Mascaras in the "Champions of Justice" movie trilogy, however, Santo was just too busy making other films to participate.

By 1977, the masked wrestler film craze had practically died off, but Santo continued to appear in more films over the next few years. His last film was "FURY OF THE KARATE EXPERTS", shot in Florida in 1982, the same year he retired from the ring. Santo officially retired from wrestling on Sept. 12, 1982 (a week before his 65th birthday). His last match was at the El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos in Mexico. All told, his professional wrestling career spanned a total of 48 years.

Santo appeared as a guest on Contrapunto, a Mexican television program and, completely without warning, removed his mask just enough to expose his face. It is the only documented case of Santo ever removing his mask in public. Santo died from a heart attack on Feb. 5, 1984, at 9:40 p.m. (about a week after his Contrapunto TV appearance). He was 66 years old. As per his wishes, he was buried wearing his famous silver mask.

Santo is immortalized in the rockabilly band Southern Culture on the Skids' 1996 album Santo Swings!/Viva el Santo. Santo is often resurrected in Southern Culture's live performances when an audience member jumps onstage donning Santo's mask.




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Lucha Libre Legend, Santo, part 3

In 1952, the artist and editor José G. Cruz started a Santo comic book, turning Santo into the first and foremost character in Mexican popular literature, his popularity only rivalled by the legendary Kalimán character. The Santo comic book series (4 different volumes) ran continuously for 35 years, only ending in 1987.

That same year, a superhero motion picture serial was made entitled "The Man in the Silver Mask", which was supposed to star el Santo, but he declined to appear in it, because he thought it would fail commercially. The film was made instead with well-known luchador El Medico Asesino in the lead role, wearing a white mask similar to Santo's silver one. A villain named "The Silver-Masked Man" was introduced into the plot at the last minute, thus the title of the film strangely became a reference to the villain, not the hero.

In 1958, Fernando Osés, a wrestler and actor, invited Santo to work in movies, and although Santo was unwilling to give up his wrestling career, he accepted, planning to do both at the same time. Oses was planning on playing the hero in these films, with Santo appearing as his costumed sidekick. Fernando Osés and Enrique Zambrano wrote the scripts for the first two movies, el Cerebro del Mal (The Evil Brain) and Hombres Infernales (The Infernal Men), both released in 1958, and directed by Joselito Rodríguez. Filming was done in Cuba, and ended just the day before Fidel Castro entered Havana and declared the victory of the revolution. Santo played a masked superhero-type sidekick to the main hero (who was called El Incognito) in these two films, and was not the main character (nor was he depicted as a wrestler in these 2 films). The films did poorly at the box office when they were released, and deservedly so as the films were extremely low budget and not very interesting. Years later however, when Santo's film career took off, the distributors of these two films quietly added Santo's name into the titles. Most people feel Santo's film career really took off in 1961, with his third movie "Santo Vs The Zombies." Santo was given the starring role with this film, and was shown for the first time as a professional wrestler moonlighting as a superhero.


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Lucha Libre Legend, Santo, part 1

Santo and Blue Demon, How cool are they?

Santo is the professional name of Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (September 23, 1917 - February 5, 1984), more widely known as Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata ("Santo, the Silver-Masked Man" in English) who was a Mexican wrestler, film actor, and folk hero.

El Santo, along with Blue Demon & Mil Mascaras, is perhaps the most famous and iconic of all Mexican luchadores, or free wrestlers, and has been referred to as "the greatest legend in Mexican sports". His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in comic books and movies. He and Blue Demon are said to have popularized professional wrestling in Mexico just as Rikidozan did in Japan and Hulk Hogan did in the United States.

Born in Tulancingo in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, to Jesús Guzmán Campuzano and Josefina Huerta (Márquez) de Guzmán as the fifth of seven children, Rodolfo came to Mexico City in the 1920s, where his family settled in the Tepito neighbourhood. He practiced baseball and American football, and then became interested in wrestling. He learned Ju-Jitsu, then classical wrestling, and although accounts vary as to exactly when and where he first wrestled competitively, either in Arena Peralvillo Cozumel on the 28th of June 1934, or Deportivo Islas in the Guerrero colony of Mexico City in 1935, but by the second half of the 1930s, he was established as a wrestler, using the names Rudy Guzmán, El Hombre Rojo (the Red Man), El Demonio Negro (The Black Demon) and El Murcielago II (The Bat II). The last name was a rip-off of the name of a famous wrestler Jesus Velazquez named "El Murcielago" (The Bat), and after an appeal by the Bat to the Mexican boxing and wrestling commission, the regulatory body ruled that Guzmán could not use the name.


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Los Warriors

Los Warriors

Los Warriors are an AAA stable comprised of:

Brandon
Kevin
Vangelis
They all have odd looks which fit right into the AAA mold. When they first made their debut in 2001, they had a member who has long since been forgotten - Uri.

http://www.luchawiki.org/index.php?title=Image:LosWarriors.jpg

Vipers Revolution

Vipers Revolution is an AAA stable, based off the old Vipers stable. The members, particularlly when Electroshock was part of the group, pushed the idea that there was no leade and they were all equals. In practice, Abismo's the top guy.
Current members:

Abismo Negro
Charly Manson
Histeria
Kaoma Jr.
Antifaz

Former members include:

Electroshock (jumped to CMLL)
Psicosis II (for a very short time, left to join Mexican Powers)
Extreme Tiger (for a very short time, jumped to RXLL)

El Trio Fantasia

El Trio Fantasia is comprised of:

Super Muñeco
Name Super Muñeco (Super Toy)
Name history El Sanguinario Jr. (Pro Wrestling Debut: - ??), Super Muñeco (?? - )
Family El Sanguinario (father), El Tramposo/Sanguinario Jr. (brother) neither is the AAA Sanguinario
Trained by: El Sanguinario
Birth date April 10, 1960 - Mexico City
Pro Wrestling Debut: March 22, 1982
Height 5'7"/170 cms
Weight 216 lbs/98 kg
Signature moves Swastika, Tope Suicida, Bobbing his head
Titles: AWWA World Junior Heavyweight Wrestling Title, WWA World Middleweight Wrestling Title, Distrito Federal Trios Titles (with Super Ratón & Super Pinocho), AWWA Trios Titles (with Super Ratón & Super Pinocho), National Trios Titles (with Rey Misterio Jr. & Octagon)

Super Pinocho
Name Super Pinocho
Name history Tigre de Bengala III (Pro Wrestling Debut: - 05/79), Super Pinocho/Pinocho/Gran Pinocho (05/83 - )
Family Pinocho 3000 (brother)
Birth date December 8, 1951 - Llano de Zacapezco, Villa del Carmen, Mexico City
Pro Wrestling Debut: 1979 - Pavillón Azteca - Mexico City
Height 5'7"/170 cms
Weight 187 lbs/85 kg
Signature moves Tope Suicida
Titles: Apatlaco Tag Team Titles (with Tigre de Bengala II), Distrito Federal Trios Titles (with Super Muñeco & Super Ratón), AWWA Trios Titles (with Super Muñeco & Super Ratón), AWWA Welterweight Title, AWWA Intercontinental Light Heavyweight Title, Distrito Federal Tag Team Titles (with Super Ratón)

Super Ratón
Name Super Ratón (Super Mouse)
Name history Super Ratón (Pro Wrestling Debut: - )
Trained by: Rayo Dorado
Birth date June 23, 1960 - Mexico City
Pro Wrestling Debut: July 15, 1984 - Tampico, Tamaulipas
Height 5'3"/160 cms
Weight 176 lbs/80 kg
Signature moves Victory Roll, Standing Mil Mascaras-style surfboard
Titles: Distrito Federal Lightweight, AWWA Welterweight Title, Mexico State Welterweight Title, Distrito Federal Welterweight Title, Distrito Federal Trios Titles (with Super Muñeco & Super Pinocho - El Trío Fantasía), AWWA Trios Titles (with Super Muñeco & Super Pinocho), Distrito Federal Tag Team Titles (with Super Pinocho)

lucha libre

Los Tortuguillos Karatekas

Los Tortuguillos Karatekas
This group of Ninja Turtle knock-offs started in the UWA and eventually ended up in AAA minus a member. They even got the chance to tour in Japan for Hamada's UWF. The members were never named, they were just given numbers:
Tortuguillo Karateka I
(Rocky Santana)
Tortuguillo Karateka II
(Robin Hood )
Tortuguillo Karateka III
( ???)
Tortuguillo Karateka IV
(Danny Boy)
They are not to be confused with Tortugas Ninja, a CMLL Ninja Turtles knock-off.

Tortugas Ninjas

Tortugas Ninjas are a masked group based off the US Cartoon Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles.

They are not to be confused with Los Tortuguillos Karatekas, a UWA group of Ninja Turtles.

The members of Tortugas Ninjas were:

Donatello
Leonardo
Miguel Angel
Rafael