Box y Lucha 205A & 206A (February 1956) recap

Box y Lucha started releasing digital sets of 1950s magazines in August 2023. The sets themselves jumped around a bit; these weren’t the first magazines released but they’re the earliest by original publish date so far. I’m going to continue to do month by month recaps, focusing on the Friday shows. Some of these might end up pretty short.

We don’t have a lot of history from the 1950s; a lot of it is later magazines recapping this period, and it’s not only complete. My general sense of 1956 is enough time has passed that both the Televicentro/EMLL war and the denouncement (no lucha on TV or women wrestling in Mexico City) are firmly in the past and everyone’s moved on. It’s still the 50s though, so the stars of that war are largely still the biggest names and some of the business practices from that battle are still intact. EMLL and other promoters – Elias Simon of Guadalajara most mentioned – are signing wrestlers to exclusive contracts, seemingly for a few months at a time. EMLL keeps most of “their” guys around, with wrestlers who became stars in the rival promotion coming in and out. 

These issues are part of this Box y Lucha Diamante collection set.

The champs as of February 1956:

• NWA Welterweight: Blue Demon
• NWA Middleweight: El Santo

(The NWA Light Heavyweight will not come to Mexico until 1960. There are no EMLL tag or trios titles at this point.)

All of that and I’ve only got two Fridays to talk about. We can pick up with the February 17th show.

EMLL (FRI) 02/17/1956 Arena Coliseo [Box y Lucha 205A, Box y Lucha 237A]
1) Carnicero Grimaldo b Mara
2) Chico Veloz b El Corzo
3) Dr. Castro b Fantomas
4) Fernando Oses b Murciélago Velazquez
5) Ray Mendoza b Jalisco González
Ray Mendoza’s first win in Arena Coliseo
6) Halcón Negro & Tarzán López b Carlos Moreno & Gorilita Flores
7) Blue Demon © b El Enfermero [NWA WELTER]
Enfermero has Demon in a hold but Demon is in the ropes, Enfermero argues with the referee, Demon topes him and wins.

This is the latter stage of Arena Coliseo being EMLL’s top building; Arena Mexico is a couple of months from opening. El Enfermero finishes revolving around a referee issue becomes a reoccurring bit, and it will set up another title match later this year.

In my mind, Ray Mendoza has always been the younger partner of Rene Guajardo and Karloff Lagarde. In reality, he’s established in EMLL before those two. It just takes him a little longer to make progress.

Dr. Castro appears to be Max Linares, the future Rayo de Jalisco. He’ll be this identity for a while yet.

EMLL (FRI) 02/24/1956 Arena Coliseo [Box y Lucha 205A, Box y Lucha 206A]
1) Rudy Castillo vs Bruno Lopez
2) Sordomudo Quiroz vs El Pirata
3) Dientes Hernández vs Fernando Oses
4) Eduardo Bonada vs El Califa
5) Akio Yoshihara vs Orquídea
6) El Gladiador b Chale Romero
7) Dorrel Dixon & Joe Grant DQ El Santo & Gori Guerrero

Box y Lucha only recaps the top two matches. Santo & Guerrero loss by excessive violence DQ – for putting on La Estrella! The referee rules that putting on the two man star hold is illegally two men in at the same time, I guess. I had no idea that hold went back to the 50s and can’t think of it ever being a DQ. Dixon claims in the post match that he is such a big admirer of Santo that he had trouble fighting him here.

Gori Guerrero is around for the month of February before disappearing from Mexico City (at least the portion we have recorded.) It seems that way the previous few years, but we’re missing far more in those years. Guerrero is still a few years away from quitting EMLL entirely but it seems like he wasn’t interested in working there much even prior.

Tarzan Lopes and Gori Guerrero have a singles match on 02/25 in Arena Puebla. Box y Lucha reports Lopez suffered an injury “three broken ribs and dislocated neck.” A dislocated neck sounds like death. Lopez is hurt but those injuries are not correct.

That’s all for February.