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The G.O.A.T. 100 #62 | Perro Aguayo
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
How best to describe Perro Aguayo?
As a performer, he was a cross between Terry Funk and Dusty Rhodes. While not the worker that Funk was, they were similarly stylistically in their brawling styles that gave you a thread of realism and how the matches always came across as fights.
Perro, for the most part, wasn't that stereotypical Lucha wrestler that people outside wrestling think Lucha wrestling always is. He didn’t do acrobatic moves. He was a brawler, whose brawls were as intense as anyone's in the world and created an aura to where people believed he would fight almost to the death. While not the entertainer or talker that Dusty was, he had a similar style of being a babyface who bled buckets, with scars on his forehead from years of blading, and both had an amazing talent for crowd control.
During much of his heyday, wrestling wasn’t big on television – as in much of the country it was actually banned from television after incidents with children replicating their heroes led to deaths – so his star was created in magazines and newspaper coverage of his bloody brawls and with his performances in Arena Coliseo and Arena México, with word of mouth spreading across the wrestling scene. Due to his combination of both men's talents, Aguayo was an even bigger drawing card than either Funk or Rhodes were in the late 70s and early 80s.
Born Pedro Aguayo Damian, on January 18th, 1946 in Nochistlan, Aguayo would learn the art of lucha from Diablo Velasco (cue Sergei reminding me about Diablo’s CV in trainees in his notes…) [ed: I mean, from Tarzán López to Atlantis? That's like if the same guy who trained Lou Thesz had gone on to train Sting or something… It's boggling!]
With a Tarzan-esque look of long hair, black trunks and furry boots, and an aggressive brawling style from the outset, known as the Dog of Nochistlán – Perro began wrestling around 1968 and captured the first of his many championships on July 4, 1975, when he defeated Ringo Mendoza in a tournament final for the vacant NWA Middleweight title.
He was such a big drawing card that in the late 70s and early 80s, when the main promotional rivalry was between EMLL and the UWA, Aguayo (much like El Santo) was able to work for both promotions on top at the same time.
It is generally believed, because he worked full-time for more years and at a time when there were larger arenas, that Aguayo, and not Santo, had more people pay ticket money to see him live than any wrestler in Mexico, managing to be my Mexico MVP in four different decades.
Perro hit his stride as a major drawing card in the 70s, winning the hair of Karloff Lagarde and Carlos Mata in 1974, and then Ray Mendoza and Marty Jones in 1975.
His drawing power and fame increased with a legendary singles feud with 58-year-old El Santo in 1975, regarded as Santo’s last great singles program, which ended with Santo defending his mask by beating Aguayo at the October 3, 1975, EMLL 42nd Anniversario show at a sold out Arena México. At this point in time, they needed a top-level worker for Santo in a singles program. Someone who could carry the action and also be charismatic enough to draw on top. It was this program that solidified Aguayo as a top-tier superstar. Even though he lost the big apuesta match at Anniversario, (losing his long locks to the ringside barber for the first time) a week later Perro beat Santo to retain the Middleweight Title. Santo did NOT lose singles matches – prior to this, his last singles loss via pin or submission (according to Cagematch) was in April 1969 against El Rayo de Jalisco. Yet Santo would end up looking up at the lights twice to Aguayo before the end of 1975 with Perro beating Santi a second time on December 5th. A new star had been born.
This position on the top of the card was something Aguayo went on to maintain no matter where he went for the next quarter-century.
In the late 70s and throughout the 80s, he and Canek were the two biggest drawing cards at El Toreo, the bullring in Naucalpan, a venue that they would help to draw 1 million fans in a good calendar year. Keep in mind that WWE traveling the world in its prime during the Attitude Era would draw two million fans and Aguayo was doing a million in just one arena.
After the loss to Santo, Aguayo would build up feuds and lose his hair on a regular basis, to Ringo Mendoza and El Faraon in 1976, in a tag match in 1977 to El Solitario in 1978 and to Rene Guajardo in 1980 and his connection to the fans was strong enough that the stipulation just wouldn't get old. Perro also feuded with El Faraón, who beat him for his hair three times, in 1976, 1977 and 1986, wins that Aguayo never avenged…
Though he is remembered more as a brawler, at this stage in his career, Aguayo did have high-flying moves in his arsenal, and his feuds with the likes of Gran Hamada and Fishman would be aerial battles – but also saw brawling break out.
Aguayo had a 476-day run as world middleweight champion in 1975 and 1976, his first major championship, and ended up holding it three times.
While with UWA, which at the time was affiliated with WWF and New Japan, Aguayo held the WWF World Light Heavyweight title seven times between 1981 and 1989. While it was called the WWF title and sanctioned, it was mostly defended in the UWA and New Japan (I'm guessing the fans in New York would wet themselves in rage if they were to see a wrestler under 210 lbs back then).
During that period Aguayo traded the title with the likes of not just Hamada and Fishman (his big rivals at the time) but also Chris Adams, Sangre Chicana and Villano III. These title matches routinely drew 10,000 and at times in excess of 20,000 fans at El Toreo. He was one of the few Mexicans to get regular work in Japan in that era, as a rival of Tatsumi Fujinami and also teaming with his fellow luchador box-office attraction, Canek in the MSG Tag League in 1982. They were superstars in Mexico, but in this context the teaming only got one win, and that was just a forfeit by the team of Wayne Bridges and Young Samson.
Perro would switch allegiance to New Japan rival All Japan (in an era when such switches became so regular that Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba had to call a truce because puro fans were tuning out because they felt the wrestlers were disloyal.) Perro would do just one tour with All Japan, wrestling in the company's junior heavyweight division. The problem that Perro would always have was that Baba, as AJPW booker, never really rated lighter weight wrestling. Perro would go back to New Japan in 1988, wrestling on the Fighting Spirit tour and then again in 1994 in a tour with AAA, in the days where NJPW were in an alliance with AAA and WCW.
In the early 90s, Aguayo and Hamada were both key components for Universal Lucha Libre, an attempt to establish a promotion with a Lucha Libre style in Japan in 1990 with Yoshihiro Asai (aka Último Dragón) as the key star. The success of ULL led to the rise of the lucharesu style, a combo of the lucha and puroresu ways of working, and to new groups like Michinoku Pro, Dragon Gate and Osaka Pro.
Hamada against Aguayo would be the ULL promotion's first big feud but then they formed a regular tag team after Perro’s rudo allies Los Brazos turned on him. After years of growing fan support Perro was finally officially a tecnico.
Aguayo and Hamada would team in both Mexico and Japan, holding the UWA World Tag Team Titles once, and the WWF Intercontinental Tag Team titles once (a WWF-branded title in Universal Lucha Libre that somehow escaped the notice of Jerry McDevitt.)
At this point in his career, he would start wrestling more in heavyweight divisions, including beating Canek for the UWA heavyweight title in 1988, taking the WWA title three times in the 90s and feuding with Cibernetico in the late 90s over both the WWA and Mexican National Heavyweight titles.
In 1991, a Konnan vs. Aguayo feud (where Perro was on the heel side in contrast to his role at Universal) saw multiple matches taking place in Arena México and it drew the best two months of business in the history of the Arena at the time, including six consecutive sellouts of 17,760 fans leading to the March 22, 1991, show where Aguayo beat Konnan for his mask. They did a second run of big business later that year leading to a hair vs. hair match where Konnan got his revenge on September 6, 1991.
Aguayo and Konnan were the two biggest drawing cards in CMLL – even ahead of El Hijo del Santo and Octagon – when AAA was formed in 1992. Antonio Peña, the booker of CMLL resigned from his role and took 32 of CMLL’s 160-strong roster, which were putting on more shows than any other in wrestling at the time. Of those 32, Perro and Konnan were the biggest names to make the move (with El Hijo del Santo another shocking switcher considering his father’s strong ties to CMLL.)
With the backing of the Televisa network and a favorable late Sunday afternoon time slot for their show, AAA quickly overtook CMLL as the country’s top promotion.
Imagine in 2025 if Paul Levesque quit WWE, took Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins with him to form a new company and that company kicked WWE’s butt from the outset. (I think WrestleTalk got a stiffy thinking about that…)
At first, Aguayo remained the rudo in the feud with Konnan, but he was a 45-year-old legend and the people simply were not going to boo him. Once Perro turned tecnico, the two rivals became the super “Dream Team” in AAA, going against Los Hermanos Dinamita and Los Gringos Locos among other factions. On the biggest show ever in Mexico, the first TripleMania show at Plaza de Toros in Mexico City on April 30, 1993 – Konnan vs. Cien Caras in a retirement match was the headliner but the other big match was Aguayo putting up his hair against the mask of Mascara Ano 2000, which Aguayo won. It deserves a big share of the kudos for a gigantic sellout of 48,000 fans.
When AAA went to Los Angeles and outdrew WWF by a wide margin, and WCW by an even wider margin, (in 1995, AAA had a house show at the Sports Arena the night before a WCW show on Huntington Beach, and the AAA show had roughly the same crowd despite the WCW show being a FREE PPV) Aguayo was the most popular wrestler on the shows.
When Konnan turned rudo to briefly join Los Gringos Locos, it left Aguayo clearly in the position as the top tecnico in the promotion. Aguayo beat Konnan in a bloody cage match in the main event of the When Worlds Collide PPV show in 1994 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena – a landmark event at the time.
Aguayo was able, through his trademark spots, his selling, bleeding and comebacks, to be a strong performer as a headliner through the mid-90s as he approached his 50s. But these years of wars in the ring on the hard-as-hell Mexican mats took their toll on his body, and Perro would become a lot more limited in what he could do. But even then, he could still draw based on his name and his trademark entrance music with the dogs barking.
He regularly held championship gold until his last big title runs, when he teamed with his son, Perro Jr. – only 18 at the time – to win the Mexican National Tag Team titles from Fuerza Guerrera & Mosco de la Merced on June 7, 1998. However, his record of luchas apuesta slowed greatly from this point, with only one on his record from his entire time in AAA – a 6-way hair match that took part in a steel cage in which El Cobarde lost his locks.
He returned to CMLL to feud with the Dinamitas, winning a hair match over Cien Caras on December 15, 2000, and another over Mascara Ano 2000 on February 2, 2001. Aguayo had a huge run as a draw in 2000 and 2001, not just in Mexico but in a number of U.S. cities on independent shows for a retirement tour, with a number of Arena México sellouts also. His farewell match, El Juicio Final, on March 30, 2001, when he lost his hair in going after the mask of Universo 2000 – the lone Dinamita left in CMLL after an exodus to AAA – was one of the hottest tickets in Arena México history.
Of course Perro came out of retirement numerous times, most notably a 2005 run when his son got involved with the Dinamitas and after taking several beatings, his father did a run-in and came out of retirement to aid his kid in the feud. This built to a double hair vs. hair match where the Aguayos beat Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 on March 18, 2005, at Arena México, which naturally sold out.
Aguayo took some of the hardest chair shots to the head over the decades. In all likelihood, it was the cause of the dementia he suffered at a relatively young age after he got out of the ring. Aguayo popularized moves like the Thesz press, the senton and the double foot stomp, the latter of which was his son’s trademark move years later.
Perro Aguayo Jr. could very well have extended his father's legacy and become a member of this GOAT 100 list we have been doing. He was trending there. He was a great wrestler and a great attraction for over a decade. He was due to wrestle Mistico – at that point wrestling as Myzteziz thanks to intellectual property reasons – at TripleMania in a lucha apuesta match that was destined to do massive numbers, but that match would never happen.
At a show for an upstart promotion called Crash, Aguayo Jr. would team with TJ Perkins (in the Manik gimmick he was working under in TNA) against Extreme Tiger and Rey Mysterio Jr.
Five minutes into the match, Aguayo Jr. ran into the corner where Mysterio Jr. gave him a double boot to the face. Aguayo Jr. took an exaggerated bump backwards. He got up and did a roll out of nowhere. On video, it appears completely out of context, but other camera angles showed he was simply rolling over Manik, who was on the ground in his way. Mysterio Jr. gave him a hurricanrana that wasn't smooth. Aguayo Jr. was far too close to the ropes. He was supposed to land in position for a 619, but with the uncharacteristically awkward move, he flew out of the ring. He did hit the
back of his head on the apron, but it didn't appear to be hard enough to be significant. He jumped right back in the ring. Mysterio Jr. threw a dropkick that Aguayo Jr., who was on his knees, turned his head and saw coming, took it, and went into the 619 position. All of this took place in a 15-second period.
It's uncertain when he went out. Aguayo Jr. appeared to hit the ropes with his armpit. Manik then took a fall into the ropes to be right next to him for a double 619 attempt. When Manik fell on the ropes, the ropes swayed and it is believed they whiplashed into Aguayo Jr.'s throat. It still all looked like a perfectly normal match, a little awkward in the sequence for sure, but nothing alarming. Mysterio Jr. ran to the ropes to swing his body into the 619. Manik moved. Aguayo Jr. didn't.
Mysterio Jr. was able to elevate his body so his knees went over Aguayo Jr.'s head
and he missed him, which was what he was supposed to do. He looked completely
confused. And he saw Aguayo Jr. was motionless.
The doctor in attendance was late in seeing to Aguayo Jr. as he was attending to a wrestler in the back who had suffered a lumbar spinal injury in an undercard match, leaving Konnan – who was in attendance – to try and revive Perro. He couldn’t. No-one could. Perro Aguayo Jr. would be pronounced dead at 1am on March 21st 2015 from cervical spine trauma from the dropkick with autopsy results showing that he had broken his C-1, C-2 and C-3 vertebrae.
On March 23rd, Perro Aguayo Sr. had to bury his son. Four years later, he would pass away after a heart attack. On 5 July, a mass was held for Aguayo at the Parque Funeral Colonias de Guadalajara, the same place where in 2015 where he bid farewell to his son, with family, friends and fans in attendance before being cremated.
Perro is, in my opinion, the greatest Mexican wrestler that didn’t wear a mask. Not many in the world of lucha drew better than Perro. Not many in Mexico can brawl like Perro did. Back in the 80s, the cathedrals of lucha would be smeared by the blood of Aguayo, Chicana, Galindo and Cien Caras. Brawlers like them don’t exist in lucha libre as much today. It’s what makes Rush so special, when he actually appears on AEW television.
If Mexico was the land of pageantry and acrobatics, Perro Aguayo was the realisation that the darkness could overwhelm the colourful world of lucha.
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