Box y Lucha 238A-241A (October 1956)

These issues are part of Box y Lucha’s Coleccion Diamante.

Puños 13 (October 9, 1956)

Puños is a monthly magazine similar to Clinch. The only real difference I can tell is Puños seems to have an issue date while Clinch just has the moment. (There’s also an “A-Z” magazine mentioned, but that hasn’t turned up digitally. They were putting out a lot of pages a month.)

The main story is an interview with Rolando Vera, covering the NWA Middleweight Championship mess. The commission invalidated Vera’s title win over el Santo, Santo refused to be given the belt, and Santo declared he’d only fight for it in a singles match with Vera – he’s not participating in a tournament. Rolando Vera says he appreciates Santo having his back on this one but also insists that any rematch for the title match should happen in front of the same fans in Monterrey who saw the now disputed title change. Vera wouldn’t get his way on that one.

Retired wrestler Firpo Segura is mentioned as working as a referee back at a June 12 Arena Coliseo show for a match between Dr. Castro and Chale Romero. He tells the magazine it was a one-time thing since it was a charity show for Bobby Corona.

Raul Romero, who’s been retired himself since 1951, is running gyms. He estimates it costs 100,000 pesos to run a gym for two years, so that’s what he’ll need to make.

There’s an argument between “La Momia de Guanajuato” and “Karis la Momia” over who has the rights to the mummy gimmick. Quite a few people ended up using the Karis la Momia character over the years, so perhaps it wasn’t settled. Karis La Momis works a lot of EMLL shows outside of Mexico City. I wonder if EMLL thought the gimmick wasn’t good enough for the big shows or the worker wasn’t good enough.

Box y Lucha 238A (October 12, 1956)

EMLL (FRI) 10/05/1956 Arena México [Box y Lucha 237A, Box y Lucha 238A, Punos 13]
1) Memo Rubio b Eskimo Blancarte
may have actually be the post-main event match
2) Frankenstein b Kiko Torres
3) Chivo García DRAW Orquídea
4) Mario Tello b Chale Romero
5) Huracán Ramírez b El Verdugo
Verdugo ripped up Ramirez’s mask. Ramirez has won six straight singles matches since debuting.
6) Jalisco González b Enfermero [MEX WELTER, final]
7) Cavernario Galindo & Gladiador b Black Shadow & Blue Demon
Shadow tope accidentally took out Demon, setting up the rudo win

Title histories have listed other locations for that Gonalez/Enfermero match and not listed it as a tournament final. It’s understandable; the semifinals were two months prior. Enfermero had a left arm injury, which both delayed a final and is an excuse for getting upset in this final. Enfermero was also dropping down in weight to compete for welterweight.

This title win prompts a Jalisco Gonzalez bio. He started his career as El Caballero Enmascarado in 1945, when the promoter just needed a fill-in guy. He lost that mask to Oso Negro, and he’s been around as a midcard guy since then. He reads like a technically solid luchador with not a lot of personality.

Nothing notable on the Sunday show. Box y Lucha notes Santo defeated Black Shadow in straight falls in Guadalajara when Shadow suffered an injury in the second fall. Box y Lucha feels Black Shadow and not El Santo is the rightful NWA Middleweight contender anyway due to winning that tournament in September. There’s also a mention of Carnicero Butcher breaking one of his hands in a match in Guadalajara and the promoting eventually paying the medical bills.

El Gladiador is still complaining that he lost his mask on a bad call by the referee.

Box y Lucha 239A (October 19, 1956)

EMLL (FRI) 10/12/1956 Arena México [Box y Lucha 238A, Box y Lucha 239A]
1) Juan Diaz b El Coyote
“super estrella” match actually held after the main event
2) Akio Yoshihara b Fantomas
3) Orquídea b Centella Inca
4) Joe Marín b Canelo Segura
5) Jalisco González b Jorge Allende
6) Henry Pilusso b Masahiko Kimura
7) Black Shadow & Blue Demon b Cavernario Galindo & Gladiador

Nothing going on here, and even less on Sunday. This week’s big news is the Santo/Vera title rematch is set for next Friday. Box y Lucha’s writers are confident Santo will win – he won all the other matches except the last one in Monterrey. They survey wrestlers and they instead lean heavily towards Vera winning the big match.

Box y Lucha 240A (October 26, 1956)

EMLL (FRI) 10/19/1956 Arena México [Box y Lucha 239A, Box y Lucha 240A]
1) Chico Veloz b Fantomas
superestrella – after the main event
2) Dr. Castro b Akio Yoshihara
3) Gorilita Flores b Mario Tello
4) El Enfermero DRAW El Caballero
debut of Caballero
5) El Gladiador b Black Shadow
Box y Lucha says this was a fast count. 6.75
6) Blue Demon b Cavernario Galindo
7.5 (of 10)
7) Rolando Vera b El Santo © [NWA MIDDLE]

There is now no doubt, Rolando Vera is the rightful NWA World Middleweight champion in the last Arena Mexico show of the year. Everything leading up to this title match – to clear up a title change that happened in Monterrey in August and was invalidated out by the Mexico City commission – remains messy and confusing. El Santo doesn’t consider himself defending champion and he’s not listed as the champion in EMLL’ s program. The ring announcer still does announce him as champion. The match itself also has some controversy. Neither man seems to come to the ring with the title belt. Santo has Vera locked in a half crab in fall three and feels a tap on his back twice. He believes that’s the referee calling the match over and let’s go, but it was actually Vera’s hand. Vera quickly locks on a suastica submission hold and Santo has no choice but to submit.

Rolando Vera’s finally given the belt he won two months ago post-match. He also reveals this match almost didn’t happen: Vera was in a car accident on Wednesday. He was hurt enough that EMLL wanted to postpone the match. Vera, perhaps having seen the commission trying to take away the belt for months, insisted on wrestling anyway.

EMLL seems to have made the best of whatever happened with that title situation. Vera is an odd pick going forward – he’s not a full time guy, and he’ll away from EMLL for large parts of his four year reign – but they kept the title on him when they had the chance to do so, and got some big crowds out of it.

Sunday’s Arena Mexico show has a controversy of a much milder sort: EMLL runs the first two rounds of a tag team tournament and says they’ll hold the final the following week. This is the first time EMLL’s tried it and Box y Lucha strongly dislikes the concept. CMLL still does this in 2023 and everyone still dislikes it. The idea seems to be to have a stronger second week with a built up main event, but I don’t see evidence (now or then) that it actually works.

Box y Lucha 241A (November 2nd, 1956)

EMLL (FRI) 10/26/1956 Arena Coliseo [Box y Lucha 240A, Box y Lucha 241A]
1) Jaibo García vs El Coyote
not listed in the results
2) Kiko Torres b Eskimo Blancarte
3) Chivo García b Memo Rubio
4) El Caballero b Orquídea
5) Carlos Moreno b Manuel Robles
6) El Enfermero b Dorrel Dixon
7) Espectro & Santo b Blue Demon & Rolando Vera

The main event has the usual reversal from the week prior. Vera gets the suastica on Santo again, but Santo’s figured out an escape in the week since and ends up submitting Vera.

Box y Lucha seems to use “Espectro” and “Espectro de Ultratumba” interchangeably. Those would be two different wrestlers many decades from now. Espectro hasn’t’ been seen here for months and later explains he broke his right arm on a dive in Monterrey about three months prior.

El Gladiador & El Mongol win the delayed final of Sunday’s tournament.

Medico Asesino is long gone from EMLL, but Box y Lucha is keeping close tabs on his matches in Texas. Sugi Sito, similarly a Televicentro star, is hyped as coming back into EMLL in December. He and EMLL had issues, like Medico. Sito left to wrestle on the west coast, “the Siberia of Lucha Libre Mexicana.” He later went to Central America and the southern US.

The commission has suspended Jorge Allende for no-showing a card in Puebla on 10/27. They’re also floating a proposal that any national champion who loses three consecutive matches would be automatically stripped of their championship. It’s unclear if they mean singles matches or all matches, because the idea doesn’t really go anywhere.

A history column mentions Televicentro coming up with the relevos australiano name in this issue.

[Previous September 1956. Next November 1956. Full index]