Idolos del Ring (Eddy Guerrero & Konnan & Negro Casas & Santo)

[Matt Farmer]

Seeing this stuff pop up youtube.com brought back a lot of memories of watching this years ago on VHS.

 

Idolos del Ring was a local tv show based in the Ciudad Juarez region of Mexico, which is right across the border from El Paso. There was a period of time when this was filmed that this promotion was on fire, selling out on a rather consistent basis. They use a lot of locals as well as national guys.

 

This is also one of Konnan's first big break out area's of Mexico.

 

Just a quick rundown for folks that are not too familiar with Lucha Libre. Wrestling in Mexico, moreso years ago than now was set up similar to the US with territories. You had your main national promotions CMLL and UWA and those promotions got the majority of coverage in the magazine because they were based around Mexico City. For years the two largest promotions did not air on television in Mexico City, but could be picked up in some markets (including the US) in Mexico. There was a lot of local promotions with television just like in the US that catered to the local stars.

 

Since the stars of EMLL and UWA were featured so much in the magazines, and since there were dozens of weekly lucha magazines and newspaper coverage those guys were national stars even without television. If you've never been to Mexico there was a time when Newstands that sold papers and magazines on every corner and they all carried Lucha mags.

 

This promotion was one of the local promotions, which for years was promoted by Eddy's father Gory. So the Guerrero name was a big name in the area. Eddy was the young up and coming star.

 

[media][/media]

[Matt Farmer]

Seeing this stuff pop up youtube.com brought back a lot of memories of watching this years ago on VHS.

 

Idolos del Ring was a local tv show based in the Ciudad Juarez region of Mexico, which is right across the border from El Paso. There was a period of time when this was filmed that this promotion was on fire, selling out on a rather consistent basis. They use a lot of locals as well as national guys.

 

This is also one of Konnan's first big break out area's of Mexico.

 

Just a quick rundown for folks that are not too familiar with Lucha Libre. Wrestling in Mexico, moreso years ago than now was set up similar to the US with territories. You had your main national promotions CMLL and UWA and those promotions got the majority of coverage in the magazine because they were based around Mexico City. For years the two largest promotions did not air on television in Mexico City, but could be picked up in some markets (including the US) in Mexico. There was a lot of local promotions with television just like in the US that catered to the local stars.

 

Since the stars of EMLL and UWA were featured so much in the magazines, and since there were dozens of weekly lucha magazines and newspaper coverage those guys were national stars even without television. If you've never been to Mexico there was a time when Newstands that sold papers and magazines on every corner and they all carried Lucha mags.

 

This promotion was one of the local promotions, which for years was promoted by Eddy's father Gory. So the Guerrero name was a big name in the area. Eddy was the young up and coming star.

 

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[media='']

[Matt Farmer]

My attempt to post a youtube video is not working? When I typed the message and posted the video, I was able to preview it and it looked great. But when I hit the post button the video did not appear.

 

I must be doing something wrong.

 

Here's the link. Maybe someone can post them?

 

 

[goc]

That first video feels so much like a U.S. territory, right down to them using the exact same song for that video that USA Championship was using for it's intro in 1988.

[Matt Farmer]

Yeah I've been searching for more footage from Juarez. I've recently come across a contact in Mexico that allegedly has about 12 hours of footage. Hope it comes through as it's one of the more interesting territories.

 

In the late 80's and early 90's the territory was doing some major business. As you can see from the footage above.

[Rah]

It's still a bit barren, but there's a Youtube channel uploading matches from Cd. Juarez. Not sure if it's strictly Idolos, but it's footage from the area, nonetheless. Santo/Eddy vs Panther/Casas sounds amazing.

[Matt D]

I wrote up the Fuerza/Casas vs Octagon/Santo match here:

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2015/12/mlj-recent-uploads-hijo-del-santo-y.html

 

Negro Casas was an amazing foil for Octagon.

[ohtani's jacket]

A lot of the matches on that Juarez channel are the tercera caida only. I'm curious about Casas' shaved hair in the Eddy match. It's always been assumed that Eddy took Casas' hair sometime in the late 80s, but the tag seems to be from the early 90s.

[Eduardo]

Yeah I know it's been said it's during the 1980's but Eddy took Casas' hair sometime in late 1990, from what I can tell from the footage.

[Matt Farmer]

The Villano III vs Flama Roja mascara versus mascara match was May 11, 1988. They apparently broke the cities live gate record.

[Ship Canal]

For years the two largest promotions did not air on television in Mexico City, but could be picked up in some markets (including the US) in Mexico. There was a lot of local promotions with television just like in the US that catered to the local stars.

 

[media][/media]

 

I did not know that. For how long did the big two promotions not broadcast in Mexico City? Was it because their attendance was so good they didn't have to worry about TV or is TV a different deal in terms of importance over there at that time? Forgive my ignorance, lucha is one of my blindspots in some ways, even though I've watched a fair bit. Trying to work on that.

[Bix]

Did the videos get deleted? The Segunda Caida link to the Santo/Octagon tag says the video has been removed.

[Matt D]

As best as I can tell, the channel is down.

[ohtani's jacket]

 

For years the two largest promotions did not air on television in Mexico City, but could be picked up in some markets (including the US) in Mexico. There was a lot of local promotions with television just like in the US that catered to the local stars.

 

[media][/media]

I did not know that. For how long did the big two promotions not broadcast in Mexico City? Was it because their attendance was so good they didn't have to worry about TV or is TV a different deal in terms of importance over there at that time? Forgive my ignorance, lucha is one of my blindspots in some ways, even though I've watched a fair bit. Trying to work on that.

 

 

You can read about it more in more detail in the Lucha History Lessons thread on this site in the DVDVR Backup forum, but lucha was basically banned from television in Mexico City from the mid-50s through to the late 80s. Lucha was broadcast on TV outside of Mexico City, and EMLL was shown on cable from '83 onwards, but UWA didn't have TV until Nov '91 at which point they were no longer the top promotion in Mexico. When Televisa began televising EMLL on national TV in 1990 there was a TV boom that led to wrestler strikes and the formation of AAA, which was essentially a political move by Televisa to gain exclusive control over lucha. Prior to the TV boom, people followed lucha through live attendance and the weekly lucha mags. Post-TV booms both those outlets declined dramatically.

[ohtani's jacket]

Did anybody watch the Perro Aguayo match/tercera caida before the channel was yanked?