Tag: Antonio Pena

Every time you see Rey Mysterio in a WWE ring, it is the living embodiment of how Antonio Pena changed pro wrestling all over the world.

When Pena, the long-time booker of the EMLL (now CMLL) promotion, left to form AAA in 1992, the idea was to build around a mix of established stars, and to create new stars. Oscar Gutierrez, then 17, and only 5-1 and maybe 120 pounds, was one of the first people he waved his magic wand on.

Gutierrez, a high school student in Chula Vista, CA, had wrestled for a few years on the Tijuana circuit as the high-flying Colibri. Most veteran wrestlers scoffed at him as too small to have credibility, and his matches were based on doing far too many flying moves and not enough basic wrestling. In truth, it was Konnan, who wrestled in Tijuana and was already good friends with him, since both were trained at the same time by Miguel Lopez, Gutierrez’s uncle, who was the original Rey Misterio,(Psicosis and Halloween were also part of that class), who recommended him. But it was Pena who pulled the trigger. At first the idea was to use him as a mini, a new division that was also a Pena creation.

Subscribers can read this issue here.

Antonio Pena, a true wrestling creative genius who is the only man to truly start a promotion from scratch and remain one of the major players in the industry in 2006, passed away on 10/5 after a reported heart attack. He is believed to have been 55 years old.

In hindsight, the death of Pena has brought to light almost an indisputable fact. There was nobody in pro wrestling who was more valuable to their company. Not Vince McMahon. Not anybody. The AAA promotion that Pena created in 1992, and has been very successful for much of the past 14 years, was on fire over the past year, drawing big crowds all over the country. With his death, the company is very much at a crossroads. There is complete uncertainty regarding its future, and probably by the end of the week, exactly what the new power structure is will be made clear.

Pena, who came up with literally hundreds of ideas, many not successful, but some ultra successful, was the AAA promotion, a one-man promoter, booker and talent manager. His closest U.S. equivalent would be Paul Heyman, actually in many ways, with the difference is Pena’s vision had far more mainstream and long-term success, but being in prime time on the biggest TV station in the country is an advantage no U.S. promoter has had.

Subscribers can read this issue here.