Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Idolo vs Exterminador 3: Idolo! Exterminador! Mascara contra Mascara

El Idolo vs Exterminador (mascara contra mascra) 17 July 1988

MD: Definitely a fitting finale to the feud, this had a lot of what you'd want from a high stakes apuestas match in front of a hot crowd with a national hero putting it all on the line. Exterminador has been something of a baffling case to both Graham and I since he comes off as extremely talented. He bumps all over the place, is full of energy and drive on offense, and jumps off the screen with character. He hits all the marks here from an early ambush to hiding the object to flying into turnbuckles and poles and tossing Idolo into chairs before gnawing at the mask and Idolo's skull.

This tended to be fairly back and forth throughout, especially once the object was no longer in play. There was that primera beatdown and a comeback where Idolo got to use funky martial arts chops on the outside as Exterminador spasmed all over the place, but most of the rest were just the two of them beating on one another and tearing at each other's mask. In the tercera, there were any number of dramatic submissions (with Idolo quick to power out) or pin attempts (some strong back and forths here). By the end, the masks were so undone and ragged that there was one spot where I half thought they'd end up wearing one another's mask.

Exterminador's mask was better set up to get bloody and there was one point where, after a posting, he ended up under the ring to help things along. All of it got the crowd into exactly the right mood and when Idolo hit his armtrap belly to belly and just held it there forever, for a pin, for long seconds after the pin, the crowd erupted with kids dancing in the aisles as the arena became a jubilant riot scene. Exterminador would lean into his defiance (for maybe it was a double pin?) and in the post match studio interview would set up his final match on the tour, but this was a nice trilogy to have under his belt and a triumphant return to the side of the angels for Idolo.

GB: What’s in a name? For Raul Torres it was both everything and nothing.

Despite coming from a wrestling family, Raul rather had his sights set on another one of Mexico’s exotic spectacles, bullfighting. The glamor of having an arena chocabloc full of fans staring only at you captured young Raul so he started his training in 1968 with the hopes of being Mexico’s next big icon. There was something to the young man that his trainer gravitated to. He had an unmatchable charisma and “flame” inside him - he had the hallmarks of a diamond in the rough. However, his trainer would tell him that bullfighting wasn’t able to release the spirit he possessed and he was destined for lucha libre. Raul ignored this and continued plying his craft in the bullring. Admittedly, he saw some success and would continue training in the sport for many years before those around him started piling on the injuries. Not wanting to be left in a wheelchair, Raul refocused his energy onto another sport that had got his uncle, Atila, great admiration and public attention - lucha libre.

A rookie in 1982, Raul was intent on making his own way in lucha, taking on his own gimmick as opposed to one that took legacy from his uncle. He was content in working lower on the card, absorbing the adulation of the crowd around him. He had to put in many nightly hours bullfighting so the gruel of wrestling wasn’t much for him. As the years passed and the gimmicks changed, Raul struck gold on his third gimmick - that of “Exterminador”. The qualities of a self-made, rough fighter fit his persona well and it seemd a character he could inflect all of his energy into. He would couple with León Negro and the duo would become a whirlwind of a hit in their local city, Mérida. The local promoter Fallo Solis was all too happy to book the two as it meant, week after week, more bums in seats than he had ever seen. Life was going well for Exterminador until León Negro quit wrestling to pursue a full-time career. The end of the duo certainly put the brakes on Exterminador’s success but he was still motivated to reach his destiny and continued fighting.

Not long after the split, a South American businessman took notice of Exterminador’s talent and offered him a fat cheque to wrestle around South America. Knowing this was his ticket out of Mérida, and likely path to superstardom when he came back to Mexico, Exterminador leapt at the opportunity. He traveled through countries such as Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, working his way up the card and fighting their local heroes. He was thousands of miles from home but he was honing his craft and playing to big crowds across a milieu of different match styles and succeeding at all of them, month after month, year after year. He had two major pit stops before returning to Mexico and the local fame he so desperately sought; namely Guatemala and Panama.

By 1985, he found himself in Guatemala. The homeland of the revered Rayo Chapin - the “real” blue legend they told the Mexican. By this time he was already a name some recognised. His debut created some hubbub. Perhaps a little shorter than some had imagined, Exterminador was every bit as ferocious as the legends that preceded him.  In no time, he was posing himself a threat to the masks of local Guatemalans and travelling foreigners much higher up the card back home.

Soon enough, as his bookings went, it was time for Exterminador to step up and face the local hero. After winning 50 masks, nobody really believed Rayo Chapin could be defeated. However, if there was ever one man, it was Exterminador. He laid out a challenge for Chapin’s Campeonato Centroamericano de Peso Medio (what a mouthful!) and made mincemeat of the champion. After three thrilling falls, the crowd was left stunned. Exterminador was the new champion. Maybe Chapin had finally met his match.

Rayo Chapin’s tag team partner, the Salvadorian Ciclon Cuscatelco, would seek revenge by offering his mask against Exterminador, which he would lose in two straight falls on December 15th 1985. This infuriated Rayo Chapin. The mask match was on. Rayo Chapin was not to be outclassed and laid it all on the line in a mask/career vs mask/title match set for the 29th of December 1985. One of the biggest matches of the 1980s was set. Yet it never happened.

Rayo Chapin was a no-show for the event and Exterminador seized the opportunity. He claimed the local legend was scared of him and took his bags and ran. “¡Qué te parece! Ese Rayo Chapin es un cobarde con suerte” (“What do you know! That Rayo Chapin is a lucky coward!") said Exterminador with a chuckle in an interview. He’d go on to say that Chapin knew he would be defeated and couldn’t bare the embarrassment. In actuality, Rayo Chapin had a double-booking in Panama (coincidentally!) at the time and chose to honor that instead. Of course that issue couldn’t be communicated with fans and instead the reasoning was left that promotions had to cease to allow focus on the concurrently running “Juegos Centroamericanos de la Paz” (a regional athletics competition). As Exterminador had violently beaten up Rayo Chapin mere days before, in a Christmas Day angle, the fans never bought this so they had grown to believe the words Exterminador was espousing about their hero -  “lo que no se imagina es que yo, El Exterminador, volveré por su máscara y ni Dios ni nadie podrá salvarlo de ser exterminado“ (“what he doesn't imagine is that I, The Exterminator, will come back for his mask, and neither God nor anyone will save him from being exterminated”)

Luckily, Exterminador was juggling multiple feuds at the time and the local promoter saw opportunity with the young upstart Astro de Oro who was being regailed as the “find of the year” and a newcomer many promoters felt could be the next Rayo Chapin or El Arriero de San Juan.

Exterminador’s feud with Astro de Oro had started quite early on in 1985, in February to be precise, when they’d encounter one another in a triangular mask/mask/hair match with Diablo Rojo. Exterminador laid out Rojo and then set his sights on Oro, who he pinned to take the match, leaving Oro/Rojo to duel it out. Much like his win over Rayo Chapin, the crowd was stunned. Before this match, nobody had pinned Astro de Oro. Yet Exterminador had. Defiantly. Astro de Oro, a blue-eyed tecnico would resort to the dirty “martinete” to retain, sensing danger to his streak..

A streak that would last mere months when Exterminador took it for himself. Astro would wager his mask against one of Exterminador’s two titles where he would finally get his win back on the 4th of November 1985. The fans rejoiced, the beast had been momentarily slain. Could he be the one to take the mask, they thought?

On the 2nd of March 1986, the fans would get their answer in a match billed as the “fight of the year”. While Astro de Oro had been undefeated, a mask match was new ground for him. The only apuesta he had won by this point was against Diablo Rojo and that was due to Exterminador’s doing. He was at a monumental disadvantage in the eyes of the fans, but they held hope as the two fighters were 1-1 in singles competition. It was champion against champion, mask against mask.

After a violent three falls, Astro de Oro emerged victorious, gripping the mask of the fallen Mexican, as the crowds pushed him to the heavens. Their David had slain Goliath. In that moment, the biggest name in Guatemalan history was born.

Exterminador would wrestle at least a few more months into 1986 before packing his bags, this time as a tecnico and compadre to Astro de Oro. I’m not sure what happened in the two years between Guatemala and Panama but his earthquakes had rippled back into Mexico and a magazine had an entire two pages dedicated to his triumph abroad and that he was a surefire star for either EMLL or UWA whenever he chose to return. I do know that he had travelled to Venezuela and Puerto Rico during his stint so it might have been here. I also know that he suffered a clavicle injury around this time and, perhaps, that delayed him heading to Panama for the feud we’ve been covering here. Whatever the case, he was equally responsible for a huge cultural moment in Panamanian wrestling (Idolo’s turn, second and final match vs Sandokan) and his mask was a massive boon to Idolo’s already impressive list of accolades.

From here, Exterminador returned to Mexico. He was destined to be a star, and newspapers talked him up as such, but something didn’t sit quite right. He wasn’t used to wrestling unmasked and felt it too awkward to capture his character. Fate would see him injure his knee within weeks of his return to Mexico, cutting off his momentum.

In part because he yearned for a mask, his brother offered him the Atila Jr name for when he finally made his in-ring return. Raul didn’t quite feel so comfortable forging on in a legacy he never built but they signed the papers and registered his licence. This would be his downfal, despite all the print chalking him up as this massive future star.

Promoters loved him but were apprehensive about booking him. The Atila name carried enough weight that just his mask put him in the upper part of the card. However, local promoters felt they didn’t have a star big enough to offer against him and he hadn’t yet made a splash locally to justify a chance at the big leagues. Thus, Atila Jr found himself floundering. All the years, blood, sweat and tears he had shed were for nought. He’d return to Guatemala in the 1990s and his feud against Verdugo(?) did gangbusters but fans were a little confused by the name as they had their own Atila (and Atila Jr). It seems to this day people get the two Atila Jrs confused.

In hindsight we can argue Exterminador/Atila/Raul’s Mexican career was a massive fumble. We cannot predict “what ifs” but there’s enough evidence to suggest he’d have more likely swum than sunk on the big, Mexican stage if he had kept to his guns in forging his own path. This painful lesson would be passed to his son, Doberman, who he ensured would not carry on a “family legacy” but rather go by their own merits.    

After four heart attacks, Raul is now unofficially retired from wrestling. Still a fan of lucha libre, he visits local arenas to witness the weekend’s fights. However, it’s only the “old guard” that recognise him from the ring. Fans will jeer and chant alongside him, not knowing the importance of the man they’re sitting by. One of the greatest unsung heroes of Latin America would see his fame dwindle into obscurity.

What’s in a name?