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55-586: Juan Conrado Aguilar Jáuregui (November 26, 1958 – January 15, 2006), better known by his ring name El Texano , was a Mexican luchador , or professional wrestler . From the early 1970s to the early 2000s, he wrestled under masked and unmasked monikers for various promotions including Universal Wrestling Association (UWA), World Wrestling Council (WWC), World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA). His son Juan Aguilar Leos wrestles under

110-486: A Cowboy character. Aguilar continued to train under Antonio Cruz in the years following his debut as he worked under a number of different enmascarado characters such as Ry Navarro, El Vaquero ("The Cowboy"), Juan El Texano and Johnny Texas. After working primarily in and around his native state of Baja California he started making appearances in Mexico City around 1975, working for Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL),

165-533: A bottle and costing Los Tres Caballeros an important match. The attack made the smaller Los Misioneros more sympathetic to the crowd, who began to support them more and more despite Los Misioneros being booked on the shows as the heels ("bad guy" characters). Their popularity as a trio also led to them being invited to tour Japan , facing off against New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) light weight wrestlers such as Gran Hamada , Tiger Mask , George Takano , Akira Maeda and Osamu Kido . In 1984 Los Misioneros won

220-501: A career in Lucha Libre ( professional wrestling ) at a very early age after receiving his parents' consent to do so. He made his wrestling debut on February 1, 1972 at the age of 13. In Mexico becoming a wrestler at such a young age is rare, but not unheard of if parental consent is given. He made his debut as an enmascarado (masked wrestler) using the ring name "Billy the Kid", portraying

275-462: A few others, their real name. One notable exception was made for David Otunga because of his real marriage to singer Jennifer Hudson at the time, which gave WWE some mainstream exposure. Low Ki used the alias "Senshi" during his second TNA stint to reserve his primary ring name for other use. A similar example is the team known as The Dudley Boyz in ECW and WWE and Team 3D elsewhere. WWE trademarked

330-483: A household name after a match in El Toreo de Quatro Caminos ("The Bullring with four corners"), UWA's main venue. During the main event Los Misioneros faced off against then 64-year-old El Santo , teaming with Huracán Ramírez and Rayo de Jalisco . In that match El Santo collapsed in the middle of the ring, suffering a heart attack during the match. His life was only saved due to the quick witted actions of Ramírez. After

385-557: A legend in lucha libre. The UWA also helped popularize the match format that is now the most common in Mexico, the Best two out of three falls six-man tag team match , or trios match when they put together the rudo (bad guy) trio Los Misioneros de la Muerte ( Negro Navarro , El Signo and El Texano ) and matched them up against trios of popular tecnicos (good guys) and drew so many sell-crowds that other promotions began to heavily promote

440-514: A long-running storyline with the tag team known as The Headhunters that resulted in a series of brutal and blood filled brawls between the two teams. On December 16, 1994 Los Cowboys won the CMLL World Tag Team Championship when they defeated Defeated El Satánico and Emilio Charles, Jr. in the finals of a 32-team tournament for the vacant tag team titles. Six months later the feud with The Headhunters saw Los Cowboys lose

495-545: A match El Texano injured his back and was forced to undergo two back surgeries to two different parts of the spine. These surgeries not only did not help Aguilar's back problems but caused him more health problems. During the final months of his life his breathing was supported by a ventilator and he was unable to even sit up. On the evening of January 15, 2006, Aguilar was rushed to a hospital in Guadalajara, Jalisco , for emergency surgery due to complications from pneumonia. Aguilar

550-751: A variation of it, sometimes modifying the spelling to better fit their gimmick , such as Dave Bautista becoming Batista (later reverting to his real name for his Hollywood acting career), Patricia Stratigeas becoming Trish Stratus , Jonathan Good becoming Jon Moxley , Bryan Danielson becoming Daniel Bryan (when he wrestled in WWE), Richard Fliehr becoming Ric Flair and Randall Poffo becoming Randy Savage . Others simply use part of their name, such as Bill Goldberg using Goldberg , Nicole Garcia-Colace using Nikki Bella , Mike Mizanin using The Miz , Cody Runnels using Cody Rhodes , and Michael Wardlow using Wardlow . Many female wrestlers go solely by their first name such as. It

605-637: Is a highly respected tradition in Mexican lucha libre for performers to hide their true identities, usually wrestling under masks, and revealing a luchador's identity without their permission is considered a serious offence with real-life consequences. Professional wrestlers are often referred to by their contemporaries by their ring name. In interviews, Bret Hart regularly referred to Mark Calaway, Curt Hennig, and Kevin Nash by their ring names ( The Undertaker , Mr. Perfect , and Diesel ). Ring names are often trademarked by

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660-448: Is also common for wrestlers of all genders to use a nickname in addition to their real name for marketability and other reasons. Ricky Steamboat is an atypical instance of a wrestler adopting a ring name to sound less intimidating, as his legal name of Richard Blood was considered unfitting for his babyface persona. Some (mostly independent ) wrestlers still go to great lengths to ensure that their real names are not publicly known. It

715-400: Is an enmascarado (Masked wrestler) and thus his birth name is not publicized. He is the uncle of professional wrestlers Jonathan de Jesus Navarro Jímenez (works under the name Mictlán ), Juan Miguel Escalante Grande (known as Inquisidor ) and Pólvora ( enmascarado ). He is the cousin of professional wrestler Roberto Gutiérrez Frías, better known as El Dandy . Aguilar began training for

770-731: The UWA World Trios Championship for the first time, although it is not documented for exactly how long. In the mid 1980s the "War" between the UWA and EMLL had cooled off enough for Los Misionerios to actually wrestle on the EMLL 53rd Anniversary Show , losing a trios Luchas de Apuestas to Ringo Mendoza , Américo Rocca and Tony Salazar . Los Misionerios regained the UWA World Trios Championship in 1987 defeating Los Villanos (Villano III, Villano IV and Villano V ), after what

825-550: The United States of America , achieving notoriety outside of his native Mexico. Juan Aguilar was born and raised in Mexicali , Baja California , Mexico but would later move to Guadalajara , Jalisco , Mexico where he lived until his death. Aguilar and his Guadalajara native wife had three sons together, two of whom became professional wrestlers, Juan Aguilar Leos who works under the ring name El Texano, Jr. and Super Nova , who

880-855: The World Wrestling Federation (WWF), Universal Lucha Libre (UWF), and Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (JWP) amongst other promotions. In 1974, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL, later CMLL) founder and owner Salvador Lutteroth González brought his son into the promotion, grooming him to take over when the aging Lutteroth, Sr. eventually had to retire. This action combined with a very rigid and conservative promotional philosophy led EMLL's promoter in Naucalpan , Mexico State , Francisco Flores , EMLL wrestler and trainer Ray Mendoza and investor Benjamin Mora, Jr. to break away from EMLL to form their own company and challenge EMLL's dominance in Mexico. With

935-482: The promotion that creates a character or gimmick for a performer. It is common to see one performer use a variety of ring names throughout their career, even if their overall persona remains similar. This is especially true in WWE , which has largely forced most wrestlers that have debuted since 2006 to use a WWE-owned ring name instead of a ring name that they used on the independent circuit or, such as with Daniel Bryan and

990-412: The trios format as well. Los Misionares de la Muerte were originally workhorse midcarders in the UWA, but their stock rose immediately in a UWA match on November 2, 1980 in a match where the three faced Huracan Ramirez , Black Shadow , and the legendary El Santo . Santo, 63 years old at the time, suffered a legitimate heart attack during the match, which ended in a no contest while he was rushed to

1045-728: The "Dudley Boyz" name, leading them to have to change their name when they went to TNA. The members' individual names were also trademarked by WWE, forcing them to have to change their names. WWE partially repealed the policy in 2015, allowing wrestlers who were well known in other promotions such as Samoa Joe , A.J. Styles , Shinsuke Nakamura , Austin Aries , Bobby Roode , and Eric Young to use their long-standing ring names (or, in Nakamura's and Roode's cases, their real names) as well as wrestlers who sign "Tier 2" NXT brand contracts such as Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa , who wrestle both on NXT and

1100-764: The CMLL World Tag Team Championship to the Headhunter duo. The two teams took their storyline around the globe, facing off both in the Headhunters' native Puerto Rico and in Japan as well. During 1995 Los Cowboys began working for the Japanese based International Wrestling Association where they won the IWA World Tag Team championship from the Headhunters on March 3, 1995. The duo lost the tag team titles on August 20

1155-643: The Can-Am Express in a tag team Luchas de Apuestas match and forced the team to unmask to reveal their true identities of Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat . On November 11, 1992 El Texano became the UWA World Light Heavyweight Champion , a title he would later lose to his partner Silver King. on July 7, 1993 Los Cowboys lost the WWA World Tag team titles to El Dandy and Corazon de Leon but regained them two months later. Their second run with

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1210-416: The UWA had 18 years earlier, and formed a new company called Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) further affecting the UWA's finances. As the peso devaluated sharply in the mid-1990s, the UWA was forced to close its doors in 1995. The UWA is remembered as the place where a lot of the main event wrestlers of the 1980s and 1990s for both CMLL and AAA got their starts, including El Canek, now considered

1265-520: The UWA. In 1991 the team won their first tag team championship together, winning a tournament to become the first ever World Wrestling Association (WWA) World Tag Team Championship . On January 19, 1992 they added the UWA World Tag Team Championship to their collection when they defeated Gran Hamada and Kendo for the titles on a show in Japan and brought the titles back to Mexico. At

1320-505: The Universal Wrestling Association (UWA), the name of its fictional governing body which was adopted from the short-lived American-based UWA promotion ran by Lou Thesz , and held their first show on January 29, 1975, creating the first true rival for EMLL in decades. To some the promotion was known as "Lucha Libre from El Toreo de Naucalpan" (simply "El Toreo"), after the promotion's home base, El Toreo de Naucalpan, which

1375-511: The WWA World Tag Team titles only lasted a month as Villano IV and Villano V won the titles from them on October 10, 1993, 39 days later. El Texano had a brief reunion with Los Misioneros as they won the UWA World Trios Championship in 1993 and held it for 155, but failed to recapture the fans' attention like their original run had. By the end of 1994 Los Cowboys returned to EMLL, now renamed Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) and began

1430-528: The belt to El Texano in order to legitimize him as a wrestler. By 1981 Los Misioneros began working high on the card, often working the main event match starting a trend of having trios matches instead of singles matches as the regular main event match format, something that helped make that match format the most common match type in Lucha Libre since then. In 1981 the Los Misioneros de la Muerte name became

1485-451: The early 1980s, even if the promotion does not acknowledge this lineage in their official title history today. The UWA even began working with EMLL in the 1980s, co-promoting shows and allowing EMLL to book UWA wrestlers on their shows. By the early 1990s UWA began to struggle financially as several of their top wrestlers left the company to work for EMLL who could offer them more money. In 1992 Antonio Peña broke away from EMLL, much like

1540-583: The globe and forged working relationships with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the United States and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling in Japan. This working relationship resulted in a larger influx of foreign wrestlers than EMLL was ever able to produce and also led to the UWA actually gaining exclusive rights to promote a WWF branded championship, the WWF World Light Heavyweight Championship in

1595-585: The hospital. The three were then re-cast as fallen angels sent to Earth to take out Santo, and were programmed against trios of other tecnicos. The Universal Wrestling Association promoted a large number of wrestling championships, spread out over several weight classes like in professional boxing and even co-promoted championships with the WWF in the United States and with the UWF and JWP in Japan. Some UWA titles are still being used today, some in Japanese promotions who bought

1650-488: The impending change of management in EMLL many wrestlers who had previously been loyal to Lutteroth decided to leave with Flores, Mendoza and Mora including Mendoza's close friends Rene Guajardo and Karloff Lagarde and a number of young wrestles, frustrated with the lack of opportunities in EMLL. They formed the company Promociones Mora y Asociados (later Lucha Libre Internacional (LLI)), which would later become widely known as

1705-477: The independent circuit to keep their ring names (or, in Gargano's case, his real name). Gargano and Ciampa have since signed exclusive WWE contracts. "In-house" WWE wrestlers still use WWE-owned ring names. In rare cases, the rights to a wrestler's ring name may be owned by a company with little or no connection to professional wrestling, such as Marvel Comics ' ownership of the name Hulk Hogan until early 2003, which

El Texano - Misplaced Pages Continue

1760-467: The masked El Texano and the recently debut Brazo de Oro ("Golden Hand"), which later expanded to include Brazo de Oro's younger brothers Brazo de Plata ("Silver Arm") and El Brazo ("The Arm"). The Brazo brothers were given the team name Los Mosqueteros de Diablo (The Devil's Musketeers) while El Texano began teaming with Antonio Sánchez Rendón, known under the ring name El Signo ("The Sign") and Miguel Navarro, better known as Negro Navarro . The team

1815-830: The match and title loss his partners turned on El Texano and attacked him after the match. The attack was done primarily to write El Texano out of the UWA storyline as he had given notice that he was leaving. El Texano left the UWA and joined rival EMLL where he began working both as a singles wrestler and as a regular tag team with his cousin El Dandy , collectively known as Los Vaqueros or simply as Los Cowboys . Later on El Texano began teaming with Silver King , replacing El Dandy as one of Los Cowboys . Los Cowboys began working for other promotions than just EMLL both inside and outside of Mexico, which led them to work for various international promotions such as International Wrestling Association both in Japan and Puerto Rico as well as working

1870-579: The match the Lucha Libre magazinez, prompted by Francisco Flores, played off the real life tragedy by promoting Los Misioneros as the team that nearly killed the biggest name in Lucha Libre ever. The event made the team the most hated trio in Mexico for years to come and helped fill El Torero arena to the brim when Los Misioneros teamed up with Perro Aguayo to face El Santo, Gory Guerrero , Huracán Ramírez and El Solitario in El Santo's retirement match. Following Santo's retirement Los Misioneros feuded with

1925-487: The most famous wrestling trainers in Mexico. In the late 1970s Aguilar, as El Texano, began working for EMLL's biggest rival the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) as they wanted to feature more wrestlers in the lighter divisions to strengthen their shows. UWA promoter Francisco Flores wanted to build some of the lesser known lightweights into high card workers and decided to build a storyline between

1980-618: The name El Texano, Jr. in tribute to his father and another son wrestles as the masked Super Nova . During his professional wrestling career Aguilar helped populate the concept of the Trios match (teams of three facing off in a tag team match) in Lucha Libre , as a part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death"; Texano, El Signo and Negro Navarro ). He also worked for an extensive period of time with Silver King , collectively known as Los Cowboys , working both in Japan and

2035-610: The prefix "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Numerous boxers have used ring names or nicknames as their mode of identification during their professional boxing careers, particularly during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. The ring name "Kid" was particularly popular, indicating the boxer's comparative youth. Since the mid 20th century, ring names for boxers have typically been less common, although nicknames have become more popular in recent years. Famous examples of boxers who used ring names include: Universal Wrestling Association The Universal Wrestling Association ( UWA )

2090-635: The promotion a quick success as they drew repeated sell-out crowds at El Toreo de Naucalpan. The promotion was the first to elevate wrestlers such as El Canek , Dos Caras , Fishman , Villano III to main event status. El Canek became the "face of the UWA", holding the UWA World Heavyweight Championship no less than 13 times during the promotion's life span, drawing full houses when he "defended Mexico's honor" against foreign wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan , Tatsumi Fujinami and Big Van Vader . The UWA also reached out to promotions around

2145-458: The same year on the undercard of the IWA's "King of Deathmatches" show. After 1995 Los Cowboys would only team together on rare occasions. In 1997 El Texano began working for Promo Azteca and when that promotion folded joined most of the other Promo Azteca wrestlers as they were absorbed by Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA), which had grown to become one of Mexico's top two promotions at

2200-562: The time (along with CMLL). In AAA he became part of a group known as Los Consagrados ("The Consecrated") along with his cousin El Dandy, Sangre Chicana and Pirata Morgan . Texano and Morgan won the Mexican National Tag Team Championship from Perro Aguayo, Jr. and Héctor Garza on September 8, 2000 and held the belts for over a year until they were defeated by the duo of Máscara Sagrada and La Parka, Jr. El Texano

2255-450: The time of their run as double tag team champions the US based World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was looking for international tag teams to compete in a tournament for the vacant National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Tag Team Champions and selected Los Cowboys to represent Mexico. The team faced off against The Fabulous Freebirds ( Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin ) in the first round of

El Texano - Misplaced Pages Continue

2310-407: The top faces (wrestlers portraying "good guy" characters) such as Los Tres Caballero ( Aníbal , El Solitario and Villano III both in trios and in individual competition. At one point Villano III defeated El Texano in a Luchas de Apuestas match, forcing El Texano to be shaved bald as a result of the loss. During the storyline El Solitario turned on his two partners, when he attacked El Signo with

2365-680: The tournament. The match took place at the Clash of the Champions XIX , which had El Texano billed as "Silver King II", was won by the Freebirds, marking the first and only time Los Cowboys worked for WCW. Texano and Silver King lost the UWA World Tag Team Championship to the masked duo known as The Can-Am Express (I and II) on June 28, 1992 as part of a longer-running storyline between the two teams. Three weeks later Los Cowboys defeated

2420-489: The world's oldest and one of Mexico's biggest professional wrestling promotions . During one show in Arena Coliseo , EMLL's secondary venue, a lucha libre magazine writer suggested he should simply work as "El Texano" ("The Texan"), a ring name Aguilar used from that point on until his death. While working for EMLL he also began training with Guadalajara , Jalisco based wrestling trainer Cuauhtémoc "Diablo" Velasco , one of

2475-455: The wrestler's gimmick changes, either subtly or dramatically. After debuting in WWE as the " Connecticut Blueblood " Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Paul Levesque's character later morphed into Triple H . A more drastic change sometimes occurs when a wrestler turns heroic or villainous , such as when Hulk Hogan joined the villainous nWo (New World Order) and became "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan. His new attitude

2530-490: Was a Mexican Lucha Libre or professional wrestling promotion based in Naucalpan , Mexico State that operated from 1975 until 1995. The name of the actual promotion was Promociones Mora y Asociados and later Lucha Libre Internacional ( LLI ) ("International wrestling") but outside of Mexico it is generally referred to as the UWA as it was the name of the fictional international sanctioning body that in storyline terms oversaw all championships promoted by LLI. The company

2585-467: Was a building Flores had promoted wrestling in for years before the split. El Toreo de Naucalpan (a former bullring turned into an arena in 1968, now demolished and formerly located near Metro Cuatro Caminos station) became UWA's main venue, used for major title matches, their anniversary shows and significant Lucha de Apuesta (bet matches) events. UWA's more relaxed approach to wrestling, combined with their willingness to promote younger wrestlers made

2640-432: Was considered the "peak" of Los Misionerios . With an influx of other popular trios both in the UWA and in Mexico in general Los Misioneros days on the top of the Trios scene came to an end, which was followed by the end of Los Missioneros de la Muerte in its original form. During a UWA World Trios Championship match against Los Villanos El Texano threw in the towel to save his partner El Signo any more punishment. After

2695-430: Was dubbed Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death"). Early on in the storyline Brazo de Oro defeated El Texano in a Luchas de Apuestas , or bet match, which forced El Texano to unmask. The storyline expanded and saw the unmasked Misionaros clash with the masked Mosqueteros on UWA promoted cards all over Mexico. The fan reception to those matches and the positive coverage in various Lucha Libre magazines

2750-596: Was due to Hogan being advertised as " The Incredible Hulk Hogan" early in his career, while Marvel owned the trademark for their comic book character. Sometimes, a wrestler will buy the rights to their own ring name; for example, Steve Borden owns the rights to the name Sting and licenses it to the musician of the same name . The wrestler formerly known as Test took this one step further and legally changed his name to "Andrew Test Martin". Jim Hellwig, known as The Ultimate Warrior , had his name legally changed to simply "Warrior". In many cases, ring names evolve over time as

2805-549: Was enhanced by changing his costume color scheme from his famous red and yellow to nWo's black and white. Steve Williams adopted the ring name Steve Austin to avoid confusion with the then-more established performer "Dr. Death" Steve Williams . Austin would wrestle under that name for several years before signing with the WWF and being given the name "the Ringmaster". This gimmick failed to catch on, and Austin reverted to his established name, reaching his greatest level of success with

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2860-415: Was founded by wrestler and trainer Ray Mendoza , promoter Francisco Flores and investor Benjamín Mora, Jr. as when they broke away from Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre to form their own promotion. The company had working agreements with wrestling promotions both in the United States and Japan as they worked with Lou Thesz 's American-based Universal Wrestling Association, New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW),

2915-512: Was injured during a steel cage match in Tijuana and wrestled his last professional wrestling match on May 15, 2005 participating in AAA's Triplemanía XIII event. During the match he teamed up with Mini Abismo Negro , Polvo de Estrellas and Tiffany only to lose to El Ángel , Lady Apache , Mascarita Sagrada and Sexy Francis in a match where El Texano spent most of the match outside the ring. During

2970-499: Was pronounced dead upon arrival due to lung and respiratory failure. Ring name Ring names are much more common in professional wrestling than any other sport; famous examples include Terry Bollea becoming Hulk Hogan , Michael Shawn Hickenbottom becoming Shawn Michaels , Roderick Toombs becoming Roddy Piper , Dwayne Johnson becoming The Rock , Christopher Irvine becoming Chris Jericho , and Phillip Jack Brooks becoming CM Punk . A number of wrestlers adopted their real name or

3025-497: Was so big that other promoters around Mexico wanted to book them on their shows, not as individuals but as teams, which was the start of the trios match becoming more and more prominent in Lucha Libre. With the team being so in demand UWA started to feature Los Misioneros more often, including El Signo winning the UWA World Welterweight Championship , a title he would later lose to El Gringo, who in turn would lose

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