Blue Panther
Profile
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Biography
Blue Panther was born on September 18, 1960 in Gómez Palacio. After getting trained first by Héctor López (a local wrestler that never made it to Mexico City), and later by El Halcón Suriano, he made his professional debut on October 8 of 1978 in his hometown at age eighteen.
The "panther" part of his name obviously comes from the animal, while the "blue" part is a tribute to his childhood idol Anibal who also had a blue mask. He actually designed his own mask, a hood that some journalists laughed at, saying that "a guy with a mask as ugly as that one will never get past the undercards". But seeing the way Blue Panther's career went, it looks like many of those writers had to eat their own words.
During his rookie year, Panther already was a better technician and smarter wrestler than many guys with more experience than him. A year after his debut he started to wrestle for René Guajardo, who was the booker of the Northern Mexico division. He went there with a recommendation from his coach Halcón Suriano.
Even though he was the Northern Light Heavyweight champion (he had defeated Chucho Mar in Gómez Palacio to get that title), Guajardo had never heard of him, but when he saw him in actuion he was nothing but impressed. Panther made his Mexico City debut on September 16, 1979. Guajardo saw all the potential and talent in the young boy and booked him regularly in Monterrey for several months and gave him a small mid-card push and the masks of two wrestlers called La Bestia and Oro (not the legendary Oro that died in 1993).
Due to his ties with Guajardo, who was a UWA associate, he got to work for Francisco Flores, and later Carlos Maynes for more than a decade. Panther made his Toreo de Cuatro Caminos (the main UWA building) debut on March 81. He started out his career as a técnico but now they made him wrestle as a rudo.
Panther's first big title match was when in 1982 he got a UWA Middleweight title shot against Centurión Negro in his hometown of Gómez Palacio. He actually defeated Centurión in the third fall via submission, but he "didn't know" that his opponent had already submit and the referee reversed the decision and Centurión kept the belt.
But it was 1984 when he finally got his big break. He had a good winning streak and he was promoted as number one contender for the UWA Welterweight title, and on December 16, 1984, he defeated El Matemático to win the first major title on his career. But that year Panther got other trophys. He unmasked Gorila Infernal, Luzbel and Bull Power, and also Las Sombras de Plata (I/II) teaming with Black Man on November 20. Also on June 24, he got the hair of El Brillante at La Arena Querétaro in Querétaro, Qro. Years later, El Brillante would become popular as the masked Kendo.
Now he was getting booked more regularly un the undercards (first or second match of the night) of the weekly cards at El Toreo, mostly teaming with Negro Casas against other light weights like Black Man, Kendo, Ultraman or El Hijo del Santo. Even back then, Panther was one of the men that provided one of the most solid bases to the athletic flyers, making them look better than they are.
On February 9, 1986, Panther lost the UWA Welterweight title to Black Man in Mexico City, but a week later, he got his revenge in that same building after defeating Black Man in a mask vs. mask match. Panther moved on from the Welterweight division and on November 16 he defeated El Gran Hamada at El Toreo to win the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Title.
He lost it to another excellent mat wrestler like him, Solar I, on May 25, 1987 in Puebla. A few months after that loss he moved on to the Tijuana circuits though he kept wrestling for LLI/UWA.
In 1988, and more exactly on February 8, he regained the UWA title from Solar. That same year he also won the masks of the "martial artists" Kendo and Blackman.
On September 16 of the same year Panther lost the title to the indian chief Gran Cochisse, and around that time he started to wrestle regularly for EMLL as well, though he had already made spot appearances at Arena Mexico and Arena Coliseo in the past.
In 1990 he opened his own gym and became the youngest maestro of lucha libre at the time. A lot of the wrestlers who signed up for his gym were actually women, so he also became the first teacher that trained men and women at the same time. In that same year, Panther also had his first Japanese tour competing for Gran Hamada's Universal Pro Wrestling.
Panther jumped full-time to EMLL in July 1991 and his first feud there was with another great wrestler, Atlantis, who was the NWA Middleweight champion at the time. Both men had an excellent title match in August in which Atlantis retained his title but Blue Panther surprised everyone and even though he lost, he came off looking better than his opponent. This classic match MADE Blue Panther a big star. The plans of the EMLL staff was having them continue the feud and then have them battle in a mask vs. mask match. Supposedly, Panther had already agreed to drop the mask, but then the wrestlers' strike hit and when it finished the feud was dropped.
EMLL created its own CMLL titles, and on December 18, Panther made Satanico submit to la tapatía in the tournament final for the vacant title, held in Acapulco. Panther was never defeated for that title but vacated it on May of the following year when he jumped to AAA.
Panther's last money match in CMLL was the first big battle of perhaps his most memorable feud ever, the one against the cocky American wrestler Love Machine. They had been feuding basically since the end of the strike in late 91, and the first stage of the feud culminated on April 3, 1992 when both men battled in a mask vs. mask match that sold-out Arena Mexico. As we can guess, Panther won that match after Machine was disqualified for using a martinete (Tombstone piledriver). The angle here was that Machine didn't know that the tombstone is a banned move, because in his country you can use it freely without being DQ'd.
Going into the business side of things, that match sold-out the building as mentioned - drawing 18,000 fans to the arena, and with 8,000 more fans waiting outside. CMLL had an awful past experience with the Rayo de Jalisco Jr. vs. Cien Caras mask vs. mask match as the enraged fans that couldn't get into the arena broke through the gates and damaged everything they could, causing damage that took around a month to repair. The building was overcrowded enough (Arena México "officially" holds 17,678 fans) but management set up a closed-circuit set of giant screens so everybody could watch the match.
Panther was one of the first to jump to AAA as soon as it was born (May) because when in EMLL he was in Peña's "clique". Love Machine jumped shortly thereafter and he resumed his feud with Panther, culminating in a mask vs. hair match held on July 18, 93 in Tonala, Jalisco. Before that one, Panther also had a rivalry with "El Comandante" Vulcano, the leader of the Los Destructores Del Ring trio, with Panther taking Vulcano's hair in a disappointing match.
Most of his AAA stay was based around him holding a title (National Middleweight) and getting all kinds of talented tecnicos to challenge him for it. To nobody's surprise, many of those matches (especially the ones against Angel Azteca, Mariachi/Solar and Super Astro) rank among the best lucha title matches of the 90s.
In 1995, when the peso went down and there was less work in AAA Fuerza Guerrera and Panther created the independent promotion PROMELL, and got some AAA guys to jump, plus they used old UWA stars and independent talent including some big names like Mascara Año 2000, Universo 2000, Vampiro, Villanos and Brazos. AAA and PROMELL co-promoted until December of that year, so Panther obviously stopped working for AAA as well.
Panther and Fuerza wrestled briefly for EMLL in 1996, but then they left as soon as they re-started PROMELL that eventually became Promo Azteca. After lots of problems, Promo closed as well, so Panther returned to AAA on July 11, 1997. As soon as he arrived, he was put in a feud with Máscara Sagrada Jr.
Panther didn't like Sagrada (as a wrestler) and felt that he was not the a good opponent so three months later (October 17) he went to EMLL again. Shortly thereafter he participated in EMLL's Copa Victoria tournament and lost the finals against his old enemy Atlantis on December 5.
Blue Panther just kept wrestling in EMLL without a really hot feud or anything, but he was always on top of the cards due to his charisma and incredible wrestling ability.
On December of 1998, he formed a rudo dream team with his nephew Black Warrior and Dr. Wagner Jr., and the 18th they defeated Zumbido, Bestia Salvaje and Scorpio Jr. in the finals of a 2-week tournament for the vacant CMLL Trios Titles. "Los Laguneros" (name of their team) from then started having excellent matches against teams like Santo, Casas & Felino, or Charles Jr., Niebla & Atlantis.
On April 2, 1999, Panther teamed with Ultimo Guerrero (a guy he discovered) to win the one-night Gran Alternativa (a youngster and a veteran) tournament at Arena Coliseo, defeating Mr. Niebla and Atlántico in the finals.
During 1999, Panther put over talented youngsters like Mr. Niebla and Olímpico in clean scientific matches. So it's not that he's got a big ego and he doesn't like youngsters like many other veterans do, he just refuses to put over in singles matches wrestlers he thinks that don't deserve it, or he wouldn't have a big feud with somebody without a real amateur background that can't work a matwork based match.
He spent most of the 2000 having great trios matches with Wagner and Warrior, and having a singles feud with El Hijo del Santo trading the WWA Welterweight Title with him, and he was also used as a challenger in several championship bouts (vs. Ringo Mendoza for CMLL Middleweight, vs. Villano III for CMLL Light Heayvweight, vs. Super Parka for WWA Junior Light Heayvweight) because the promoters know that he excels at that kind of matches.
There is no doubt that Blue Panther is one of the best wrestlers to ever grace lucha libre. He is able to carry any green luchador and make him look good, he can have great matches with average opposition, and he always has excellent or classic matches when facing a great opponent. He's one of the smartest minds in all of wrestling and probably the best mat based wrestler in the business, he's versatile (excellent rudo, excellent tecnico) and undoubtedly a young legend and a future hall of famer.
