Arena Puebla luchador Toro Bill Jr. passed away from a heart attack Monday night, following his match in the arena. Toro Bill Jr. teamed with Prayer against Asturiano & Millenium in the night’s second match. Contacto Deportivo’s video story implies he collapsed after delivering a seated dropkick and was taken to the back on a stretcher. Early in the main event, between 45-60 minutes later, medical personnel were seen rushing toward the locker room with a defibrillator. CMLL announced Toro Bill Jr. passed away shortly after the show concluded.
Toro Bill Jr. was a second-generation wrestler in this long-time lucha libre building. The original Toro Bill wrestled in the arena in the mid-80s until the 00s, and was still active as of last year. The young Toro Bill Jr. appears to have started in Arena Puebla in 2005 and the father and son team for a time. Arena Puebla is a CMLL-owned building, one of four lucha libre buildings they still run, with the main show of the week taking place every Monday for the last few decades. Toro Bill Jr. regularly appeared as an early match rudo and was frequently seen when CMLL televised and streamed the show in the 2010s. Both Toro Bill Sr. and Toro Bill Jr. are heavy-set men, the father more than the son.
(Reports differ on Toro Bill’s age. His facebook lists his birthday as May 29, 1986, which would make him 35 and the start of his Arena Puebla career at 18. I do not have his real name.)
Toro Bill Jr.’s best run during the Arena Puebla streaming period was as part of La Batillon de la Muerte, a Mexican revolutionary-themed team with Rey Apocalipsis and second Adelita, forming to 2014. The two were a well working rudo and colorful team with Apocalipsis bringing most of the charisma, and got over pretty well for a time. Unfortunately, CMLL appears to see most local Puebla luchadors simply as bodies to fill out the first couple of matches. Few are ever pushed, even versus each other. CMLL recognized the act was over enough to bring the act to Mexico City for an interview on their Informa talk show, something typically only done if they’re going to use the wrestlers in Arena Mexico, but that was it. They didn’t get much to do in Arena Puebla either, which would’ve been so easy to do. There was definitely something there that felt like it connected with the crowd and could’ve gone a lot farther, CMLL just didn’t seem interested in it.
The shine wore off the duo when they were stuck in the same place for so long and then Apocalipsis & Bill were suddenly no longer teaming with each other in early 2017. There was no breakup angle, they were just suddenly in different matches if they were even both booked. They reunited for a match in 2018 and occasionally since, though neither man gave much of an explanation as to why they stopped teaming. They continued to team on shows outside of Arena Puebla, including coming to the Mexico City arena on Lucha Memes cards. It seemed like a specific CMLL/Arena Puebla restriction that the two were not to be a regular team.
Toro Bill Jr. also wrestled on independent shows in Puebla. He was a frequent participant of “La Liga de la Justicia”, which appears to be a lot of Arena Puebla regulars bringing in Mexico City independent talent to have the sorts of big matches they weren’t getting to have in their home arena. Toro Bill Jr. also made a surprise appearance on the 2019-12-03 Arena Mexico show, filling in a Copa Junior block for a missing Super Astro Jr. He didn’t go far in the tournament but looked fine, and it’s another one of those things where maybe he would’ve gotten another chance if the pandemic didn’t come around a few months later.
A traffic accident last week (April 18) caused the road from Mexico City to be cut off and prevented from making that Arena Puebla show. Toro Bill Jr. filled in the semi-main as a result. My records are far from complete, but it’s the highest I have him working on an Arena Puebla show. He seemed thrilled with the opportunity. Saturday on his public Facebook page, Toro Bill Jr. wrote a long post about the evolution of the mask and all the people who’d helped train him over the years, thanking them for helping him on his journey. It’d be one of the last posts he’d get to make.
Toro Bill Jr. is the third wrestler in the extended CMLL family to pass away in the last six weeks, following Black Warrior Jr. (training injury leading to death months later) on March 17th and Raziel (heart attack/car accident) on April 4th. Toro Bill Jr. is the second active Arena Puebla local luchador to pass away in the last couple of years, with Puebla luchador Ares el Guerrero (unconfirmed COVID related) passing in June 2020.