(year) 2000 Coahuila/Durango lineups added to the luchadb

My latest weird research project was going thru the 2000 archives of El Siglo de Torreon, pulling out all the lucha libre info I could find, and adding them to the database. It’s took well a month or two to transcribe them all, and they were added to the database over the last week. There are 279 events covering Coahuila and Durango for that year now. I believe I only had 1 prior.

If you’re someone running your own wrestling match database or otherwise want this info, the complete list of what I pulled together is here. I don’t know if anyone actually DOES, but I like the idea someone might.

I used the El Siglo de Torreon search, and simply searched for lucha libre. I ran another search for building “Arena Olimpico Laguna” to pick up a couple of stragglers, and it’s possible I missed some other ones. It was a lot of transcribing from newspapers, which means a lot of typos. I’ve cleaned up what I’ve caught but there’s still more in there.

The vast majority of the event records I have are just the lineups. This paper was still publishing all the local lineups up to a couple years ago regularly. Results would still be better, but you can still get a handle of some things.

And, so, some things I figured – which will probably only be interesting to people greatly interested in obscure lucha libre in Durango and Coahuila at a specific time.

Ten most frequently appearing

86 El Tackle
80 Sexy Libra
77 Sexy Killer
72 Piloto Negro (Laguna)
63 Averno (Laguna)
63 Satan (Laguna)
62 Zafiro
59 Pequeno Star
58 Super Arana/Super Arana 2000/Arana 2000
57 Ultimo Rebelde

Rencor Latino appears to have come thru here in 1999, right before he got the Averno name. It’s a remarkable coincidence.

Ultimo Rebelde is modern day Hooligan, unmasked and returned back home after Promo Azteca fell apart. Meanwhile, his old partner who walked out on him, Ultimo Guerrero, starts the year by being honored for having the best local match of 1999 (versus Hijo del Santo) and then really takes off in 2000 in CMLL. That must’ve been disappointing times for Ultimo Rebelde. It got better.

Super Arana 2000 is the future Misterioso Junior. A “Hijo del Misterioso” actually pops up for a match during this year, but doesn’t appear to be this luchador. (It does appear that Misterioso has sold his name to a whole lot of people over the years.)

• mystery IWRG luchador Moon Walker turned up here in April, was said to be from Ciudad Juarez. This is possibly really important to someone.
• My impression is the Circus in these parts is not the IWRG Circus, but I don’t think I’ve ever confirmed that. Circus, Payasito, Averno and Guerrero feel like the local Rayo Tapatios and Artillero & Super Comando – they’re still in the same spots doing the same match.
• There’s a lot of people still around from 14 years ago, which is a bit of a general lucha thing. Piloto Negro and Piloto Suicida are still feuding brothers on shows, Daisy Crazy works all the exotico matches (and no one can still decided how to spell her name from day to day.) El Tackle is on shows wiht his son. Lee Roy Jr. seems to be just starting at this point – there’s an actual story where Vigilante defeats Lee Roy Jr. and Lee Roy comes out of retirement – but there’s no sign of “Deportivo Lee Roy”. Which is odd, since it just celebrated a 20th anniversary. Maybe someone’s name got changed.
• Best match of the year was probably Hijo del Santo vs Blue Panther on June 15th for the WWA Welterweight title. It’s a few weeks after the same match in Monterrey and probably the same match, though not that many people would’ve known.
• There are other “guest stars” who come thru and a semblance of a loop – Arena Olimpico Laguna on Thursday, Arena Gerardo Calderon Rocha on Friday, Deportivo Diabolico II and Deportivo King I on Saturday and Arena La Rosita & Deportivo Halcon Suriano most Sundays, Auditorio Municpal on others. (Or a few of them the same day – if they were enforcing the rule about only one match in a state a day, the guys were publicly evading it by just going across the state border to work a second.)
• And nearly only arenas. They tried running another building one Sunday because the Auditorio was being used for a religious function, only to be told they could never use that building again before the show was even run. There was also an article about people who used the buildings on Monday being upset about the mess the lucha libre promoters were leaving on Sundays.
• A man named Black Ninja turns up for about three weeks, suddenly has a mask vs hair match with Piloto Negro, loses the mask and is revealed as the retired Brillante. This is never explained, Brillante just goes back to that name. Maybe people caught onto Ninja being Brillante (but since he’d been around there forever, how could they not?)
• Meanwhile, one of his brothers – I think it’s the more recent Pentagoncito but I’m not sure – is wrestling as “Disck Jocker Joe”. There is a picture, but it doesn’t really reveal what it must be liked to be an evil DJ. The journalist (never credited) frequently has issues spelling the name, omitting the ‘s’ among other issues. He used to be Atlantic Jr. until Stuka Jr. took that mask a few years prior.
• Stuka Jr. is all over this cards, as is older brother Stuka I…as is Stukita. The current Stukita would’ve been 6 (six) years old at that point, which is on the young side even for lucha libre so their must’ve been another Stukita?

This was more than I thought I was going to be able to write about this. My guess is I’ll try 1999 next – but what I’d really like to be able to find this sort of electronic search for other areas in Mexico. Just can’t find them.