Raziel (1973-2022)

Long time CMLL rudo and current Mexican National Trios champion Raziel (49) passed away Monday. Reports from SuperLuchas and Miguel Reducindo mention Raziel’s death stemmed from a car accident.

Raziel will be best remembered as one half of a partnership with Cancerbero in CMLL. The two were an inseparable team for Raziel’s entire 18-year run. It’s hard to imagine one without the other. Raziel was the skinner, more technical wrestler of the rudo pairing, someone well regarded by his fellow luchadors for his skills. They started in CMLL as Los Romanos in late 2003, Raziel as Calígula, and Cancerbero as Messala, roman themed characters who mostly worked opening matches. That spot rarely made TV in days with a lot less televised CMLL, but the few matches and highlights showed great teamwork and good action.

CMLL reintroduced the pair as part of Los Canceberos del Infierno in 2009, alongside leader Virus, Euforia and Polvora. The latter two also were early match CMLL wrestlers being given a big shot and they eventually got it: Euforia is a many-time champion and frequent main eventer, Polvora’s held singles and tag champions, and steadily moved up the card. Raizel & Cancerbero really did not benefit much: they went from wrestling in the 1st or 2nd match to wrestling in the 2nd or 3rd match, where the big moments are being the 15th or 16th person in a tournament and getting knocked out quickly. It didn’t make a lot of sense from the outside why some benefited from the group and others didn’t, because Raziel specifically was easily a better worker than Polvora at that point and maybe as good as Euforia. Euforia has much more height, and Polvora had won CMLL bodybuilding awards, though Raziel did well in those too. Maybe CMLL still felt Raziel & Cancerbero were too small, maybe they just didn’t have the right connections, maybe there were just too many people ahead of them, but the team never took off.

Instead, Raziel & Cancerbero got typecast as good gatekeeper guys, on-the-job teachers for young wrestlers. They were skilled at basing for tecnicos and encouraging the novice rudos to do the same. Every new wrestler for a decade straight wrestled Raziel & Cancerbero at some point, probably for quite a while. They stood out when given the chance, but their roles were to make others stand out. It’s tough to give a lot of Raziel match recommendations because that just wasn’t the job, but his 2010 cibernetico win, the rudo/rudo match with los Guerreros Tuareg, and the Arena Coliseo Tag Team championship match with Fuego & Stuka Jr. are ones I’ve marked down as great.

Raizel & Cancerbero were good at the spot for a while, but had rapidly diminished in the last few pre-pandemic years. Their skills were still there, but there was some obvious frustration as well. Years of being the ones to make other wrestlers wore them down, upset they weren’t even the ones getting prepared for big opportunities despite their obvious abilities. Raziel & Cancerbero’s on-screen role was to be bullies and cheats, but it also seemed to be increasingly the reality. There were quite a few times where Raziel especially seemed to embarrass opponents or go out of his way to make it clear they were the ones who had just screwed up, not himself. They had flipped from being great in their role to being a detriment to young wrestlers. Raziel & Cancerbero were fair to be bitter about how CMLL had treated them, but it would’ve also been fair for CMLL to ask them to move on to elsewhere based on how they were acting. CMLL being what CMLL is, there didn’t seem to be any consequences to tenured luchadors for their occasional acts of sabotage and no chance they were leaving any time soon.

The pandemic changed a lot of careers negatively. For Raziel, it happened to give him the biggest break of his career. The CMLL diehards were the primary ones still following the promotion during the 2020 shut down and through the dire empty arena matches which followed. Those fans still believed Cancerbero & Raziel, along with occasional trios partner Virus, were very good and deserving of most opportunities. CMLL let the fans decide the 2020 Aniversario matches via voting and likely believed either the pushed Casas family or the Panther family would win the poll to face NGD for the national trios titles. CMLL diehard fans instead rallied towards candidates they felt the promotion had never given a fair shot, and Cancerbero and Raizel easily fit that description. They lost that title match in September 2020, but it seemed to change the promotion’s mind on the team. (A steady departure of talent also opened up spots.) Los Cancerberos won the national trios titles after NGD relinquished them in 2021, and defended them fairly regularly by CMLL standards until Raziel suffered an injury in November 2021. CMLL early match wrestlers of Raziel’s age and position usually only get significantly pushed if they’re about to lose their mask to someone on the way up, but this Raziel push seemed to be just about him being a good wrestler and being popular enough to be used in a bigger way. It was long after anyone would’ve suspected it would’ve happened for him, past his peak as a wrestler, but 2021 was clearly the best year of Raziel’s career. 2022 seemed promising as soon as he could return.

Raziel’s injury, like most CMLL injuries, was never announced or explained, but he had posted a photo in March of getting his leg worked on in preparation for a return. It didn’t seem he was close to a return: CMLL announced the Universal tournament will start with the national champions this Friday, Virus & Cancerbero were included but Raziel was not. At the same time, CMLL likely would’ve done something to crown new trios champions by now if they believed Raziel was going to be out much longer. It’s a decent bet he would’ve been back in the next month or two and resumed the great moment he was already in. It’s great Raziel got his moment in the sun before he passed away, even as sad as it is he won’t be able to continue it.

Raziel trained under some of the most highly regarded lucha libre trainers: the late Brazo Ciberentico, Skayde, and Tony Salazar. Raziel’s earliest character appears to have been “Arquero I”, an identity Brazo Cibernetico also used. He got his first real attention as “Neo”, teaming with tag team partner “Geo” in 1997 Promo Azteca, then using the character in IWRG and indies following that promotion’s demise. Neo seemed to be a Skayde concept; he worked with various Toryumon Mexico stars who Skayde was also training. Skayde and Raziel still seemed to be close as Raziel moved on with his career; Skayde was urgently trying to contact people (including Raziel’s nephew, AAA’s Latigo) Monday.

CMLL will hold a moment of applause for Raziel on Tuesday in both Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo Guadalajara. His partners, Virus & Cancerbero, are scheduled to wrestle Friday in the first block of the CMLL Universal tournament. They’ve been teaming with Luciferno, whose own trio drifted apart over the last year, and talked about permanently adding him to the unit. I don’t believe they meant it as the forever Raziel replacement, though that probably now will occur. This is the second CMLL wrestler to have passed away in a month, following Warrior Jr.’s death back on March 17th.