some stray thoughts on the WON HOF lucha libre candidates

A person, we’ll call him Mr. J. Gagne, solicits my opinion on WON HOF lucha libre ballot every year. He also asks me if I’m going to write or podcast something about them. I say “no, I’m definitely not.” And then I do anyway because of him. This is effectively brain control.

Generally, I think it’s absurd we’re comparing Caristico to people who died twenty years before he was born. The changes in this category mean there’s seventy years of history in one bucket, which is too vast for almost anyone to claim they’re super knowledgable about. I’m definitely not claiming that knowledge and somehow I’m going to vote for that instead. The historical split done for the US category should be for all of them, or the guys who haven’t been active in 50 years should just be off the ballot and voted in by research instead.

Medico Asesino

Medico Asesino was either the biggest or close to the biggest start in Mexico from about 1952 to 1956. The problem for him is there’s not much before 1952, the post-1956 stuff took place largely in another region (Texas/US), and there’s not much of a career after 1956 (he’s fatally ill by 1959.) He was the top star for a promotion that has long ceased to exist (and who’s existence has largely been ignored), through no fault of his own, so there’s not many carrying his legacy forward. It’s a peak value candidacy, for a guy’s peak work has been written out of history but was very important in that moment.

He was a top draw, there are dozens of ‘doctor’ candidates who’ve followed on after him, including plenty of fake family members, to call him innovative in some fashion. I think he belongs in.

Rito Romero

It’s not the Romero Special it’s La Tapatia even he called it La Tapatia stop doing that.

Like Asesino, Romero’s success came during the middle of last century, on Televicentro and otherwise outside of EMLL and somewhat in the US. Those candidates don’t do well by conventional Mexico standards (how many NWA title reigns? how many big Arena Mexico shows did he headline?) Romero seems like he was a big draw in Guadalajara and may have been in Texas, but I’m not 100% confident about it.

There are borderline candidates based on how we each weighing the information we have. Romero’s borderline is more because we lack the information to conclusively know one way or another. If we could push a button to have all the information possible in a handy algorithm, Romero is probably a slam dunk one way or another and I don’t know which way.

Los Brazos & Caristico & Huracan Ramirez

These guys are here every year and will get the same votes every year. I don’t think there’s much new to say about them, though I guess it’s worth noting Caristico just main evented another Aniversario show. Not sure it matters. I’m not sure there’s anything Caristico can do in Mexico outside of starting another boom that’ll matter to a voter; his best chance at winning as a Mexican candidate would be going to a US promotion and doing fine for a couple of years, as weird as that is.

The 60s/70s magazine reading I’ve done has made it harder to figure out Huracan Ramirez as a draw. He’s mentioned so often as going out of the country, which is largely a big unknown, and he’s rarely put in key places in Arena Mexico when he’s around. That could be EMLL perceived as a not seeing him as big a star as portrayed, but it also just could be EMLL not doing a lot with an independent guy.

Sangre Chicana, Jerry Estrada, La Fiera, Pirata Morgan

I slacked off on going through the 80s DVDs after my YouTube channel got blown to bits. I need to get back to that, but that means my opinions on the best heavily 80s guys are still underinformed. So take this for nothing but in my head, these guys go

Likely Yes: Sangre Chicana
Maybe Yes: Pirata Morgan
Maybe No: Jerry Estrada
Likely No: La Fiera

I don’t feel strongly about any of these and live in mortal fear of the subtweets that are coming. It’s too bad we moved past those few years where people might try to tell you why you should vote for a HOF candidate (although they never did for lucha so why I’m being nostalgic for something that didn’t exist.)

Karloff Lagarde

Old friend, we meet again. I’m up to 1974 in my magazine reading – people have left EMLL to form LLI, only they don’t know they’re forming LLI yet, it’s shockingly less organized than AAA’s birth – and that’s about the end of Lagarde’s front line career. It’s remarkable how he’s around the top of EMLL for so long, never off due to movies or contract disputes, but he’s never ever the #1 guy or on the S tier. He’s never the top tecnico or rudo and there’s usually one or two more people between him and the top. Lagarde exists as the gate keeper for the people fighting to get to that tier, and always specifically Rene Guajrado’s second banana.

But you don’t have to be the top star to get in the hall of fame, or this would be a much smaller hall of fame. He’s got the longevity near the top and he constantly seems to be respected for his wrestling skill. It just seems weird to vote someone in based on wrestling ability without having ever seen his wrestling ability.

Alberto Munoz

It took me a while to get it, but Munoz is here solely because he passed away in late 2019. He’ll get less than 10%, fall of the ballot, and that’s probably the last an English speaking audience will think about him. He’s worth a few words.

Alberto Munoz was on a arc towards being a Hall of Fame wrestler. He won national weight class titles moving up the weight classes, beat professional setup man Karloff Lagarde, then ran into Rene Guajardo as his roadblock. My reading of the situation, heavily weighted by the magazines I was reading, is it was just a matter of time before they Munoz got that career-making win over Guajardo. Munoz might have emerged as a short term young rival for Gujarado or even replaced him as the respected rudo who the diehard fans believe is the real best wrestler in the promotion (the Ultimo Guerrero role, to give an example.)

One match changed that. An El Marques kneedrop to Munoz’s head went very badly in 1973, and his life is diverted to a different path. No one’s ever quite specific about the head injury he suffers, but it’s enough that the Mexico City lucha libre commission doctor tells Munoz to leave wrestling. Munoz leaves wrestling only for about a year, returning in late 1974 on some non-commission shows. He does eventually make it back as far as wrestling in LLI/UWA, eventually under a mask as White Man (the partner of Black Man), but doesn’t win a title in a promotion crawling with them. He has a solid journeyman career for a few years before fading out. There are some mentions of him being involved behind the scenes in Guadalajara, mostly with the commission, but it’s unclear how significant it is.

If that kneedrop is a little bit safer, if he doesn’t suffer a head injury, maybe Alberto Munoz makes it. Guajardo goes into business for himself (literally) in 1974, touring around Mexico as the ‘real’ middleweight champion after the NWA stripped recognition. Munoz going along with him as a perennial challenger would’ve made sense for both men. EMLL realized they needed to make a lot of new stars to replace those who were leaving or aging out at that time. Maybe the offer would’ve been stronger for Munoz to stay and get some of the big wins that started going to Ringo Mendoza that year. Or maybe both groups are so desperate for new names that even a guy who’d been around for a few years like Munoz gets overlooked. It’s impossible to know because that’s not the way it went.