Grouping Mexico's Workers

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As requested by ohtani's jacket...

Mechanics (listed somewhat chronologically)
MS-1, Espanto Jr., Hombre Bala, Rambo, Emilio Charles Jr., Bestia Salvaje, Pierrothito
Smooth, bumping bruisers with big grins. Generally maskless, tended who have more personality than starpower. Can captain a team, but generally more natural as the #2 or #3 in a match. Often more workmanlike than their talents necessitate, and as such they tend to be better in 3v3 matches than 1v1s. A lot of these workers ended up in longtime rivalries with tecnicos who were much bigger stars (Espanto vs Santo for instance), perhaps because their inring ability and general selflessness made for a great pairing with guys who actually did need to be the center of attention all the time. Once a fairly common type of worker, but now not as much. Maybe the mechanics all have masks now and expressive faces is no longer an important feature for this group.

Entertainers
Mocho Cota, Fuerza Guerrera, Brazo de Plata, Jerry Estrada, La Parka
Charismatic rudos who incorporated a lot of comedy and zany antics into their performances. Quite athletic as well, maybe because they needed to remind the fans that they were for real and not just pure comedians. Equally comfortable leading a team or in a backup role. Parka and Porky both spent most of their career as tecnicos, but with them I see it as their charisma engulfing the rest of their work until they were more charisma than wrestler.

Superstars
Cien Caras, Pierroth Jr.
Dr. Wagner Jr. possibly a third member here. Alpha rudos whose star presence is their defining attribute. Generally understand that match quality isn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Probably not a very common group historically, as you can't rise through the ranks just by acting like a star. No one's going to buy that. Charisma is something that is earned as much as inborn. Pierroth and Wagner both changed their personality after reaching a certain level, and it's not easy to make that kind of stylistic change midcareer.

Maestros
Blue Panther, Negro Navarro, Dr. Cerebro, Virus
Brilliant rudo technicians whose ability is the main feature of their character. These guys can wrestle typical matches, but they clearly work differently from your standard rudo. Longevity is not so much a tendency of this type of wrestler as it is a prerequisite.

Speedsters
Silver King, Felino
Black Warrior another worker I'd lump with these guys. Similar to the maestros, they seemed to define themselves by their speed. That's hard to make into a strong personality trait, and as such they were minor stars who easily shifted between tecnico and rudo. All of these guys came from wrestling families. Maybe defining themselves by workrate is something that happens only with guys who grow up knowing what impresses workers. For someone who comes into wrestling just to make a buck, it might not make sense to make that a dominant attribute.

Complete tecnicos
Lizmark, Atlantis, Angel Azteca, Ciclon Ramirez, Ultimo Dragon
Stunning flyers who could also work the mat. Very common type of masked wrestler. Not big personalities. Lizmark is more or less the father of this group, although he no doubt was inspired by other similar workers beforehand. In general these guys don't have very many mask matches, Atlantis an obvious exception here, and they're much more technical workers than brawlers. This is a type of wrestler that will get over with a strong push but easily gets lost in the shuffle otherwise. Hard to imagine these guys as rudos (although it did happen with Atlantis).

Daredevils
Mascarita Sagrada, Rey Misterio Jr., Mascarita Dorada
Similar to the other masked tecnico group, but with a greater emphasis on flying. These are the guys fans will seek out just to see a particular spot that they did. I don't know if small size is a necessary part of this personality or if it's because it's hard to do those crazy spots with similar sized wrestlers.

Dancers
Super Astro, Rayo de Jalisco Jr., Kung Fu
Kendo and Kato Kung Lee also in this group. Masked workers who, as much as signature moves, have signature sequences that involve a lot of playing along from the rudos. Not as much emphasis on technique as other masked tecnicos, much greater emphasis on comedy. These guys generally have bigger personalities than the other two masked tecnico groups. Rayo aside, they don't usually end up as main eventers, but in contrast to the Lizmark group this is a type of wrestler that thrives in the midcard. Their personalities shine through with everything they do and allow them to stand out even without a push. Kato is the only one of these guys who could do this maskless. Astro remasked, Kendo remasked and Kung Fu worked a different style when he was unmasked. Fairly tight grouping, not a common type of worker and possibly extinct.

Everymen
Javier Cruz, Texano, Dandy
Kind of an unmasked version of the Lizmark group, but these guys are generally more grounded and more likely to brawl. All three spent substantial time as rudos. Previously quite common (Americo Rocca belongs here), but unmasked workers are a lot rarer now. I'm not 100% confident that this is a cohesive group, especially Texano, who was much more muscled than the other two and is remembered more as a rudo Misionero than as a tecnico.

Idols
Perro Aguayo, Sangre Chicana, Villano III, Black Terry
Beloved workers with a penchant for bloody brawls. Spent time as rudos, some even while still beloved. Black Terry seems out of place here, but he mattered as much to his smaller fanbase as Chicana and Aguayo did to theirs. Not really sure modern wrestling supports this kind of worker, although I guess LA Park has matches in the same style.

This was focused on workers who were nominated for the GWE poll, because it was linked to something I was doing there. Plenty more to choose from, and of course you also have plenty of guys who defy categorization.

[ohtani's jacket]

Where would you put Satanico, Santo, Casas and Pirate Morgan?

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Satanico and Casas are both alphas with great skill who were treated as such, they both had(/are having) long careers and they both had plenty of success even as older wrestlers. In the ring they aren't anything alike, though. You could group them together, but probably best to just acknowledge each of them as a singular performer in the annals of wrestling. Casas has a lot in common with the Fuerza group, but as I see it he isn't really defined by his zany antics the way those guys are.

Santo could go in the group with Atlantis and Lizmark. He just has so many qualities that are unique to him--the moves handed down from his father, the formula criticisms, how natural he found it to work as a vicious bastard--that again I'd probably put him by himself. He shares some qualities with the Perro Aguayo group, but he wasn't a brawler first the way they were.

Pirata has a lot in common with the entertainers, but his bloodthirsty image would be out of place with those guys. Very funny when he wanted to be, though.

My goal wasto find cohesive groups of similar workers where you can sort of see why things turned out that way for them, rather than to find a label for everyone. I tried to err on the side of leaving guys out, but I'm sure you could find guys who don't quite fit.

What were your thoughts?

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm gonna break my thoughts down by category one at a time.

Mechanics (listed somewhat chronologically)
MS-1, Espanto Jr., Hombre Bala, Rambo, Emilio Charles Jr., Bestia Salvaje, Pierrothito
Smooth, bumping bruisers with big grins. Generally maskless, tended who have more personality than starpower. Can captain a team, but generally more natural as the #2 or #3 in a match. Often more workmanlike than their talents necessitate, and as such they tend to be better in 3v3 matches than 1v1s. A lot of these workers ended up in longtime rivalries with tecnicos who were much bigger stars (Espanto vs Santo for instance), perhaps because their inring ability and general selflessness made for a great pairing with guys who actually did need to be the center of attention all the time. Once a fairly common type of worker, but now not as much. Maybe the mechanics all have masks now and expressive faces is no longer an important feature for this group.

I like where you're going with this category, but to me a mechanic implies someone who is technically proficient but lacking in charisma. A lot of the names you mentioned were capable of being fabulous performers. Anyone of those guys could have carried a feud if given that spot, so I prefer to view them as perfect foils. There are two skills that are crucial for this type of worker (aside from carrying a big feud), and those are can you add to a trios match as a secondary guy and do you have a repertoire of spots that can elevate a trios match if you have limited ring time. To me, trios matches that have a single throughline (the main beef) are infinitely inferior to trios matches where the secondary workers create mini-beefs that complement the main storyline. Great rudos are capable of picking on a guy to add to the heat or doing something spectacular during their spot to keep driving the momentum forward. Given that 90% of trios matches end up being matches featuring randomly thrown together workers instead of matches building to a singles bout, bringing it every night and being the glue of a trios match become important for workers in this category. I don't know if you intended this to be the classic rudo role, but it's arguably the most important role in lucha. 

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It's not the classic rudo role but a subset of that. Classic rudos who (more or less) had the ability of a top star, but didn't need to be the center of attention. You'd say Satanico is a classic rudo, right? And Pirata? But those men were natural stars. To me a defining quality of these workers is that they weren't born to be stars, either because they didn't quite have a star's charisma or because it simply wasn't in their personality. Including Satanico and Pirata with them wouldn't be terribly instructive.

Part of what I was thinking with these guys came from years of wondering how MS-1 vs Chicana could be an alltime classic, but MS-1 could go the rest of his career without another performance like that. Or how Charles could be such a beast in 1989 and never really put things into that gear again. Or why Bestia never had that one classic match. And then you think about it, and they were all essentially in the same position in the same promotion. The MS-1 role more or less went directly from MS-1 to Charles to Bestia. Why did Charles and Espanto, not really major stars, have sustained rivalries with Atlantis and Santo? What I really hoped to do was to see if putting guys with shared qualities together could help explain things like that to me.

[ohtani's jacket]

Well, we don't really know what other great matches a lot of these workers had. If we didn't happen to have MS-1 vs. Chicana on tape, we might not even consider him a great worker. Maybe he'd be viewed on the level of Masakre. So that skewers things a bit. Then it becomes a question of a lack of charisma or ability vs a Satancio or a Pirata, and I don't see it. I personally think Emilio and Bestia were every bit as charismatic as Satanico and Pirata. In my mind, there are other factors involved such as booking and timing., physical decline, etc. It's lucha -- it's not like these guys are getting only program after another leading to a singles match. They heat guys up then they drop them back down the card again. So it's not really fair to say they couldn't have great singles match after great singles match. Even Satanico and Casas were moved down the card. Now if we're talking about potential, each of those guys got a chance to shine in at least one high level feud and they produced. They're a step above the average rudo. In fact, they're some of the best rudos of all-time, work-wise, and they excel in multiple genres of lucha, for want of a better word, so I tend to have a high opinion of them. I get that there is a cap on what they achieved, but if I look at these guys closely, I would say that their biggest weakness would be that it would be hard for me to see them having successful tecnico runs. 

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I definitely wouldn't say that Emilio Charles had less ability than... well, anyone, really. And you're right that those guys could have any number of great matches we don't know about. But going on what we do have, with the possible exception of Espanto, they don't have the great showcase matches that Mexico's heavy hitters do. To rank them with the country's best, you have to be the kind of maniac who keeps track of supporting performances and random 3v3s, or you have to give a lot of credit to things like ability and consistency, which are a lot harder to pin down than just a simple resume. Personally, I don't see any of them as the type to force greatness, but they could work a great match with a willing and equally capable tecnico.

None of these guys is any less than very good, IMO, with Charles and Espanto both genuine greats. That they are tough to imagine working as tecnicos (even guys who actually did like Charles, MS-1 or Hombre Bala) is a good point. I wouldn't worry about it any more than I'd worry about how Lizmark would work as a rudo, but it's another shared characteristic between them.

[ohtani's jacket]

Looking for signature matches from Mexican workers has always been tough due to the fact that they don't work as many singles matches as other wrestlers and the singles matches they do work are often on house shows. There are details we can quibble on. I think Bestia vs. Sevilla is a signature Bestia match, for example, but not enough people sing its praises for it to be considered a truly classic match. My rule of thumb for lucha tends to be that from XX to XX how many times did I see worker XYZ have a good performance? Yes, it means watching every trios match that's available, but this isn't All Japan tape collecting. 

Anyway, let's move onto the next category:

Entertainers
Mocho Cota, Fuerza Guerrera, Brazo de Plata, Jerry Estrada, La Parka
Charismatic rudos who incorporated a lot of comedy and zany antics into their performances. Quite athletic as well, maybe because they needed to remind the fans that they were for real and not just pure comedians. Equally comfortable leading a team or in a backup role. Parka and Porky both spent most of their career as tecnicos, but with them I see it as their charisma engulfing the rest of their work until they were more charisma than wrestler.

This is an interesting category as I feel that a lot of the workers from the previous category also incorporate comedy spots into their matches. It's almost a prerequisite of being a luchador as comedy bouts are a staple form of lucha libre and a common way to take a night off. That's not to say that the workers you chose didn't excel at comedy or being entertaining but rather that it was part of their bag of tricks. Cota I don't feel comfortable putting in this category since the two best matches we have of his are titles matches. Fuerza was flamboyant and hugely charismatic but also a tremendous foil. He was over the top but at the end of the day his role was to carry Pena creations like Octagon and Volador. Estrada could work just about any style. The results depended on how sober he was. Porky and Parka I complete agree with as they had full on routines. You could probably include a number of exoticos in this category. I would separate it as full comedy vs Fuerza/Psicosis style comedy spots like falling off the apron. 

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I think a difference between these guys and the last group is that the last group's comedy is usually done to put over a tecnico (usually--not always). These guys will sometimes do comedy spots just to do them, stuff that might not even involve the tecnico at all. They're a lot wilder, more self aware, and their outlandish persona makes up a bigger part of their image. Fuerza Guerrera is a very well rounded worker, and I don't think anyone who's watched a lot of him would dispute that, but that's not really how's he introduced to new fans, is it? It's more like, "You're not gonna believe this guy."

Cota's best matches are the ones with Americo Rocca, but I don't see that as something that distinguishes him from the rest of the group. All of them except Porky have multiple strong title matches to their name. To me that's something about this group that's unique to Mexican wrestling, or at least un-American (feel free to call me out if I'm showing my ignorance here, or at least my lack of wrestling worldliness). Emilio Charles and company were not far off from being Mexican versions of Arn Anderson, but I can't think of an American analog to Fuerza, a man who was taken seriously as a threat and as a champion despite all all of his antics and his stumbling. Maybe the British comedy workers?

[ohtani's jacket]

To your point, I wouldn't say Fuerza is far off being a Buddy Rogers/Ric Flair type, which would differentiate him from the Arn Andersons of Mexico, except that he never really rose to the level of a Rogers or Flair, which would make him more like a Buddy Rose, I suppose.

That said, I think it's important to remember that in American wrestling a lot of the skills a Fuerza shows are limited to house show matches where they work a lighter style. Lucha matches tend to be basically taped house shows so you get to see a lot more variety from luchadores. 

With Cota, we got those two matches against Rocca, but didn't get a full grasp of his gimmick and the different costumes he wore to the ring, so I'll concede that point. I do feel, however, that there is a dividing line between Porky and other workers where you know that with Porky it's going to be a comedy match and with other workers you're not sure what they'll give you. 

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You're probably right about Brazo de Plata. It was actually kind of stupid that I tried to group him with anyone. He's a unique performer. Maybe there's an alternate universe in which he stays in shape and becomes a beast in 1v1s, but he didn't take his career in that direction. I think wrestling is probably better off the way things turned out.

I like the idea of Fuerza as a Mexican Ric Flair. I think he was more comedically inclined than Flair, but maybe I'd see Flair's act differently if I didn't immediately associate him with limousines and jet airplanes, and all I had was the matches.

[brockobama]

Would Fuego fit in with this Dancer group or am I thinking too literally about that name? Certainly doesn't seem as over as the rest of those guys.

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I haven't seen nearly enough of Fuego to know how he wrestles or how he's fared for himself in the CMLL hierarchy. With those guys I was thinking of sequences where the rudos follow along and get left bamboozled with the tecnico hardly touching them. Kato running along the ropes, Kendo's repeated kipups, Super Astro's backflip into his little dance number, that sort of thing.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Superstar category is a hard one to define. Who knows what makes a superstar. I can tell you that I loved the hell out of the Caras vs Rayo mask match, enjoy a lot of older Perro Aguayo matches, loved Pierroth's 1992 run, and I'm a huge sucker for Vampiro in Mexico, but I can't really explain why these things are special. Wagner has that superstar heat, but he was a fantastic worker when he wanted to be. I'm assuming that you're defining superstar as a worker who draws a ton of heat and knows how to work a crowd but doesn't do a hell of a lot in the ring. I assume that takes Perro off the board since he was a great brawler in his prime. We don't really have enough footage of Mil Mascaras in Mexico to know if he fits the bill, and we know that he could work when he wanted to. How about Rayo? He's not bad for a heavyweight, I suppose.  

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On 3/17/2024 at 4:51 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

I'm assuming that you're defining superstar as a worker who draws a ton of heat and knows how to work a crowd but doesn't do a hell of a lot in the ring.

More or less. Not so much that they can't or don't do much in the ring, and more that ringwork isn't a big part of their identity. All of those guys have great matches to their name. And obviously there are other Mexican superstars. That was just me coughing out a name to categorize a couple of aura-centric wrestlers.

I see the similarities with Rayo, but I feel like if you don't buy into his act then you're gonna see him as corny. I can't imagine how someone could call Pierroth corny, even though I'm sure it's happened.

[ohtani's jacket]

btw, I assume you're referring to masked Pierroth and not the Los Boricuas Pierroth.

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I never really thought of them as two different entities. He was still the same guy with the same skillset, just more of a heatseeker after he lost the mask.

[ohtani's jacket]

He seems super broken down as an unmasked guy. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Maestros
Blue Panther, Negro Navarro, Dr. Cerebro, Virus
Brilliant rudo technicians whose ability is the main feature of their character. These guys can wrestle typical matches, but they clearly work differently from your standard rudo. Longevity is not so much a tendency of this type of wrestler as it is a prerequisite.

This is an interesting category to me. First of all, I've never associated a maestro as being a rudo. To me, a maestro is a wrestler who shows mastery over lucha holds whether they're a tecnico or a rudo. Blue Panther, for example, was a maestro whether he worked tecnico or rudo. It later became a loan word in English to describe older luchadores who worked the traditional style on the indy circuit, but originally I believe it was a word to describe workers with superior technique. Over time, there was an element of age involved. I never considered Cerebro or Virus to be maestros in real time. Navarrro in his prime wasn't what I would consider a maestro. That was a gimmick he fashioned for himself in his old age. Panther and Satanico in their primes I would consider maestros. Charles Lucero is a good example of a guy who became a maestro because he worked for so long. 

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I don't think you have to be rudo to be a maestro worker. Solar wasn't. It was just something that united these four guys. Looking at them one by one:

There are a lot of matches in which Panther wrestles like any other worker, but he's also the definitive Mexican technician to a lot of people.

Even before he hit the maestro circuit, even before the maestro circuit really existed, Cerebro established himself as a supremely gifted mat worker who really liked showing off that particular skill. Here he is working a long exchange of holds in the third fall of a match (after doing the same in the first fall). And there's the title match with Multifacetico that lasts nineteen minutes, the first twelve of which are on the mat. Maybe he didn't have the reputation in real time, but he probably should have.

Virus had a stretch of probably over ten years midcareer when he didn't seem to be wrestling like a maestro often. But from 1996-97 you were almost guaranteed a long stretch of technical work from Damiancito el Guerrero every time out, and then in 2011 you knew that a Virus title match was going to be a throwback to some degree. That to me is a key element of these four workers. You could tell you were going to get something out of them that was just different from the rest of the promotion.

Misioneros Navarro, to the extent that he exists on video, doesn't look like he wrestled this way. But old man Navarro is the archetypal maestro worker, the one who more or less invented the throwback/tribute style, and there are probably hundreds of videos of him online versus fewer than twenty for prime Navarro. I'm fine saying that this is who he is, more or less.

I don't think Satanico belongs here. Not fluid enough on the ground, not enough flair or creativity. What's the craziest submission you've ever seen Satanico pull? How many widely praised title matches does he have? I'm fine saying that he was a great technical worker, but not a cut above like the other four. He was just as much of a brawler as he was a technician.

I don't have a clear image of how Lucero wrestled in his prime, so I don't know if his style as an older worker was an adaptation or a continuation of what he'd been doing.

[ohtani's jacket]

Sorry, I was confused. I thought you meant a maestro was typically a brilliant rudo technician. Maestro is a tough one for me because it can mean so many different things. You can be a maestro because you're a brilliant technical wrestler or a maestro because you're old as dirt and have stuck around for so long. Is it a title or a gimmick? One thing is for sure, though., if Satanico isn't a maestro then I don't know who is. His entire gimmick is built off superiority. I'm inclined to put Villano III and possibly V in the maestro category, but then again El Signo could be a maestro too. It comes across as an extremely broad category that simply means you've been very good for a long time. Though I suppose if you only include worker who were a cut above the rest technically then you can eliminate a lot of people. It's still kind of tricky, though. Technically, Dos Caras would be a maestro but you only ever see it in spurts. 

Speedsters
Silver King, Felino
Black Warrior another worker I'd lump with these guys. Similar to the maestros, they seemed to define themselves by their speed. That's hard to make into a strong personality trait, and as such they were minor stars who easily shifted between tecnico and rudo. All of these guys came from wrestling families. Maybe defining themselves by workrate is something that happens only with guys who grow up knowing what impresses workers. For someone who comes into wrestling just to make a buck, it might not make sense to make that a dominant attribute.

I never thought about this being a specific type of worker but it's interesting to consider. This seems to be a trait of undercard workers to me. I can't remember the names of those AAA workers that Bihari loved (Los Vipers?), but there's always been guys working at breakneck speed. I'm sure it's only increased over the years. Weren't there some crazy dudes in the early days of AAA? Dives seem important in this category. 

 

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If you asked me for a superquick definition of what a maestro worker is, I'd say a superlative technician who's always showing off that trait. The kind you associate with must see highspot submission holds. Lots of great mat workers aren't maestro types. But I'm sure everyone has their own definition. I think within the parlance of Mexican wrestling it usually means that a guy is an instructor.

I just lump Felino, King and Warrior together in my brain as wrestlers who had everything it took to become all time greats--charisma, mechanical ability, physical skill (plenty of it), a solid push-- and weren't. They ended up as less than the sum of their parts, although Felino had some great matches. It seemed like they could have shelved some showiness for a more cerebral side to their game, but I might simply be searching for a narrative to explain why it never happened with them.