Viva la lucha! Wrestling legends enter Juárez Lucha Libre Hall of Fame

Ten professional wrestlers from yesteryear are being honored in Juárez, where the treasured history of Mexico's iconic lucha libre dates back to seeds planted in the Borderland over 90 years ago.

Champions, masked heroes and villains from Juárez who fought in Mexico and internationally, including in El Paso, as far back as the 1960s were inducted into the Juárez Lucha Libre Hall of Fame in festivities over the weekend, city officials and wrestlers announced.

The honorees are Rocky Star, La Bestia, Serpiente Blanca, La Sirenita, Sombra de Plata, Rossy Solís, La Araña Negra, Master, El Tupamaro and El Trovador Solitario.

It is good to honor people when they are living, it does no good once they have died, said El Trovador Solitario, who is also the president of the hall of fame association, said at a May 18 news conference at Juárez City Hall.

Sports: Meet the 2022-23 El Paso Times All-City wrestling team

El Trovador Solitario (The Lone Troubadour) is a singer and a luchador in a mask with musical notes who would enter arenas singing along with mariachi. He made his wrestling debut in 1968 under the name Rudy Damián before becoming El Trovador Solitario in 1971, according to information from the city of Juárez.

Lucha libre, meaning "freestyle wrestling," is marked by lightning-quick grapples and movements, high-flying acrobatics and colorful masks in a Mexican cultural art form of the eternal battle of tecnicos against rudos, the good-guy clean, technical wrestlers against the crude bad guys.

Rocky Star and other Juárez lucha libre legends

The rough-and-tumble life of a professional wrestler can be tough with injuries and travel. But there is also a glory to be found in the adrenaline of the ring, the cheers of fans and the delight of children.

Rocky Star, real name Federico Ramirez, nicknamed "El Idolo de Ciudad Juárez," the idol of Juárez, was one of the most popular luchadores of the 1980s representing his hometown with a star-eyed mask and his dark hair sticking out on top.

"Rocky Star is another hometown boy who made good," stated an El Paso Times feature article on the Juárez lucha libre scene in 1984, when fans would fill the 10,000-seat arena for shows on Sundays and Thursdays.

At the time, Rocky Star was also a 24-year-old optometry student at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez who had started wrestling seven years prior in Mexico City.

“It was always the clash of Juárez (versus) Mexico (City), Juárez (vs.) Torreón, Juárez (vs.) the United States, but overall, we identified with all the precious people that we have here in Ciudad Juárez, and I got to experience that image," Rocky Star told Telediario Júarez in 2016.

Another one of the honorees is former women's champion La Sirenita (The Little Mermaid), Guadalupe Buil Peña, who was born in the Mexican Gulf Coast city of Matamoros and was known as "the blonde panther." Buil would go on to become president of the Juárez Professional Lucha Libre Commission and owner of a beauty salon in El Paso.

One of the most-veteran honorees is La Bestia, who was a professional wrestler for nearly six decades. Fernando Urrutia Solís, 77, was born in 1946 in Michoacan and made his debut in lucha libre as a teenager at the Anahuac arena in Juárez in 1963, according to information from the city of Juárez.

The first seven years of his career he wrestled under the name Torbellino Solís. In 1971, he joined a gang of rudos under the name La Bestia, meaning "The Beast." He would continue wrestling until his retirement in 2021.

Lucha libre is a lifestyle, La Bestia said, "I feel a great joy and great gratitude" with the hall of fame induction, he said at the news conference.

Lucha libre's roots in the El Paso-Juárez Borderland

The pioneering ancestor of Mexican wrestling is said to be Enrique Ugartechea, who was known as "Mexico's Strongest Man" and is credited with developing lucha libre from Greco-Roman wrestling in 1863, a year after the Battle of Puebla, the original Cinco de Mayo.

The seeds of the modern form of lucha libre go back in the El Paso-Juárez Borderland about 90 years.

If Salvador Lutteroth is known as the "father of lucha libre," then some say that Juárez is "la abuela de la lucha libre," the grandmother of lucha libre.

Mexico: 'El Brujo Mayor,' Mexico's famous Grand Warlock dies at age 84

After serving as an Mexican army officer during the Mexican Revolution, Lutteroth worked as a federal inspector for Mexico's Tax Department assigned to Juárez in 1929. While in Juárez, he attended professional wrestling matches in El Paso's Liberty Hall. Captivated by the spectacle, he took the idea to Mexico City, founding the Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre in 1933.

The professional wrestling would take a uniquely Mexican style, exploding in popularity with the advent of television and becoming a beloved part of Mexican popular culture with masked stars such as El Santo and Blue Demon.

The El Paso-Juárez Borderland has a wealth of professional wrestling legends, including the late Salvador "Gory" Guerrero, patriarch of the Guerrero family of wrestlers, Guerrero's son WWE champion Eddie Guerrero, who will be inducted posthumously into the 2023 El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame next month, and Cassandro El Exotico, whose story is the focus of a recent biopic starring Gael García Bernal.

Pagano — sporting a wild, menacing look with tattoos, a jack-in-the-box spring inked on the front of his neck and psychotic-clown face paint — is likely the most-popular current Mexican wrestling star hailing from Juárez. His ring name is Spanish for "Pagan."

Archives 2022: Viva Juárez! Monument to Mexican President Benito Juárez unveiled at El Paso's Chamizal

Pagano, real name José Julio Pacheco, grew up watching the wrestlers enshrined in the hall of fame, he said at the news conference, where his appearance was subdued with a black suit and without the face paint.

It is importance to recognize and honor the past giants of professional wrestling, who were an inspiration to new generations, Pagano said in a statement issued by the city.

Thanks to legendary luchadores, there is “great natural resource” in lucha libre in Juárez, Pagano said.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Mexico wrestlers enter Juárez Lucha Libre Hall of Fame 2023