Was second-in-command when it comes to CMLL booking from the late 1990s.[1] Along with Juan Manuel Mar, finalized all the weekly plans for the Arena Coliseo & Arena Mexico shows. Retired from the role in January 2021.[2]
Former CMLL luchador Franco Colombo (Jaiver Esparza Coonado, 73) passed away on Sunday. Colombo was a Guadalajara-born Diablo Velasco trainee, a regular in the promotion from the 70s through the late 80s, named as such because he looked like bodybuilder Franco Columbu.[3] He was mostly a midcarder who worked tecnico, with a few-year stretch as a rudo. Colombo mostly worked unmasked, except for a short run as “La Silueta” when EMLL was putting masks on everyone. He held the Mexican Welterweight Championship for a year: he defeated Americo Rocca in 1980, then lost it to El Supremo, and never challenged for bigger titles after that. He had a bunch of apuesta matches, including one with a famously messy finish. Colombo retired back to GDL around 1989, but the EMLL office convinced him to come back to overhaul their training system and decide which new wrestlers were good enough to make the roster. Colombo also became part of the [CMLL#Programming Department|CMLL programming department] and was part of it for decades.
The framework Colombo set up is still the basic system CMLL uses now, and Colombo gave many current CMLL trainers their jobs or trained them as wrestlers. Colombo also ran classes for children, so he knew many of the younger CMLL stars. Colombo and CMLL parted ways during the pandemic. Colombo’s story on what exactly happened varied in the times he told it. Once, it was because he was told by Salvador Lutteroth that he’d be getting a pandemic-related pay cut and quit. Another version is that he was pushed off the programming committee by another (implied to be Julio Cesar Rivera.) Colombo was close to the Munoz Family – he’d always deny a persistent rumor that he was Rush, Dragon Lee and Dralistico’s uncle – and the way all those guys left may have bounced back a bit on Colombo.
CMLL was very unchanging from the mid-90s to the end of the 2010s, and Colombo was a behind-the-scenes reason of why things were what they were, good or bad. He was part of the company for most of his adult life. None of that matters, though; it doesn’t matter what Colombo did or didn’t do for CMLL. He left on bad terms, so CMLL is apparently not acknowledging his passing.
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