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The G.O.A.T. 100 #94 | Negro Casas
- Peter Edge
- May 14
- 11 min read
Updated: May 24
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!
Not many wrestlers have had the longevity of Negro Casas. I mean, no one on this list has nearly as many "Years of Quality" as he. A Top-Ten star in lucha libre in four different decades, Casas would see the evolution of the art of lucha, share the ring with multiple hall of famers while planting his DNA into the history of wrestling in Mexico.
Jose Casas was born in 1960, the son of Pepe Casas, a wrestler who invented La Casita, better known as La Magistral. He went to events his father wrestled at, sitting in the front row alongside his brothers, who ended up being Heavy Metal and El Felino in their pro careers. At these shows they pretended to get upset and cry when their dad would be selling, as per instruction from their dad as a cheap way to get the rest of the attendees to get behind him for the comeback.
Casas made his debut at the age of 19 in the most unusual debut in this series. His father was supposed to wrestle on a card in Puebla but he no-showed and the promoter told Jose – who was training to be a wrestler and had only gone to the arena to do trainee things – that if he didn’t fill in for him, he would have Pepe blackballed.
Jose wrestled as Pepe Casas Jr. wearing street clothes, teaming with Rey Saul (who doesn’t have a Cagematch profile) losing to Solar I & II. When he arrived back to the locker room he was met by his father. It had all been a test by Senior to see how Jose would handle himself in such a situation.
He must have passed the audition, because Jose was soon on cards all over Mexico, now working under the name Negro Casas and yes, I’m not using that word after this. (If History YouTuber Bluejay refuses to say that word, then neither will I.)
In 1980, Casas worked a match against Fuerza Guerrera that was so popular with the live audience that they threw money into the ring – a tradition in lucha when fans want to show the highest appreciation for a great match. Promoter Paco Alonso even entered the ring and asked the crowd to show their appreciation for the match they just saw, earning both men a regular job with Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL, today known as CMLL).
Casas began working for the Universal Wrestling Association alongside EMLL, and it would be in the UWA where he really made his name in the 80s – winning their World Lightweight Title on New Years Day 1984. After 301 days, he dropped the title to El Hijo del Santo which would be the beginning of an in-ring connection that would span decades. Casas would lose his hair in an Apuestas match in July 1987, in which El Santo’s kid put the (truly priceless) family mask on the line. By the time of that match, both men had been established as the future of lucha libre and as major box-office attractions.
Casas would win two of his four Mexico MVP awards from me in this period, being the top of the luchadors in 1986 and 1987. Footage of those years is limited, but his box-office numbers bore proof of his dominance those two years. His mid-80s work is so notable that he was in the 100+ strong field that Dave Meltzer picked to be in the Observer Hall of Fame – one of only eight who were still under 40 at the time. In the 30 years since that first class, Casas is just one of just three from Mexico to get in before hitting 40 whilst still alive. (The other two being his nemesis El Hijo del Santo, and the superstar of today Mistico.)
Casas would then start working for WWA, a new promotion out of Tijuana, being their inaugural Welterweight Champion. He went on to hold the title for two years, until losing it to Tornado Negro. He won the belt back, but then vacated it when he moved back to the UWA. A few months after the move, he won their Middleweight title from Super Astro, (Mistico’s brother) holding the belt for 787 days. The UWA would close its doors in 1995 due to the collapse of the peso. After this, Casas' original promotion, now renamed CMLL, became his full-time home, which was seen as a big move for the 62-year-old company in a time when AAA had taken a lot of their established stars at its inception.
At the end of the year, Casas beat El Hijo Del Santo in a tournament to crown a new NWA World Lightweight Title, holding this title until Shinjiro Otani dethroned him in the J-Crown Tournament to unify 8 different lighter weight titles from all over the world in the first round of the tourney – with Ultimo Dragon winning the tournament to have possession of all 8 belts in the end, beating Otani in the semis and Great Sasuke in the final.
Casas / El Hijo del Santo would rekindle their feud the night Casas took the title in December 1995, but it took its biggest twist when Santito (as EHDS was affectionately called) made a shocking and unprecedented change to his persona:
CMLL would reignite the feud with Santito and Negro Casas, with Casas beating his forever rival at the CMLL 62nd Aniversarrio show. Santito would take a brief hiatus from CMLL in the aftermath of this defeat. In the time Hijo spent away from CMLL, Casas turned técnico (the lucha term for the rule-followers). His former allies Scorpio Jr. and Bestia Salvaje saw this as a betrayal, and warned him that they had a surprise for him. That would set up what was supposed to be a trios match between Casas, Hector Garza and El Dandy versus Scorpio and Salvaje and their mystery partner. In the midst of the match, Casas would find himself in a 2-on-1 situation when his brother, who wrestles as El Felino would run out to save him. Or so it seemed. Felino would take off his cape and reveal – it was actually El Hijo Del Santo who would join in on the attack on Casas. Santito had turned rudo (villain) for the first time in his career. The man bearing the legacy of the great hero El Santo was now on the darkside.
The anger at this betrayal was such that a riot almost broke out, with fistfights in the bleachers of Arena México. This moment turned business around fully in CMLL’s favour in their war with AAA, helping CMLL to resist the turbulence of the peso crisis that was overwhelming Mexico at the time.
A beloved three-way match adding the jam-up guy that is El Dandy to the pair was a notable match of this feud, but it’s the lucha apuesta between Santo and Casas that really made the dosh for CMLL. Casas would once again lose his hair to Santo at the 63rd Aniversarrio show, bringing the year-long chapter of this novel of a rivalry to a close.
The next chapter in their story saw another change of alignment for Santito, with the pair teaming up to feud with Santo’s allies during his heel run, Scorpio Jr. and Bestia Salvaje. Casas and Santo would beat them in a match for their CMLL Tag Titles via DQ but – even though at that time that was considered a title change in CMLL – they didn't want to win it that way, and refused to accept the belts.
They got the belts via pinfall a couple of weeks later, starting a 441-day reign that only ended when Santo left the promotion after a falling-out with CMLL higher-ups – the first of many Santito would go on to have with the company so synonymous with his family.
The Casas / Santo vs Scorpio / Salvaje feud would see Casas take Salvaje’s hair three times in less than two years. The first was in the March 1999 tag-title win, with Scorpio’s mask also being taken by the pair. The second came three months after that, and then No. 3 came in November 2000… meaning that Salvaje got more haircuts in this 20-month span than I have in the last 20. (Is this why I’m single?)
Some time later, El Hijo del Santo worked out his issues with management and re-teamed with Casas, starting a feud with the men who had taken their vacated tag titles in a tournament, the hottest team in Mexico, Último Guerrero and Rey Bucanero. By November 2001 they had won the tag titles back, starting a 210 day reign before finally losing them back to Los Guerreros del Infierno.
The son of Santo would cut ties with CMLL for the third and final time in late 2004, leaving Casas to go back to singles, where he would win the CMLL Middleweight Championship. Now back to being non-exclusive, Casas also won the Trios Title in the regional International Wrestling Revolution Group with his brothers Felino (the real one this time) and Heavy Metal. IWRG and CMLL would work together in the mid-00s with the promising youngsters in CMLL going on excursion to the independent group. But in a sign of how much a persona non grata El Hijo del Santo had become with his former paymasters, the moment he turned up in IWRG, CMLL cut off the agreement. (You might be better off getting on the bad side of Pablo Escobar than CMLL, with how CMLL doesn’t forget.) This meant that Casas’ IWRG Middleweight Championship reign stopped being promoted… but it wasn't ended until five years later when they finally officially stripped him of the belt.
Between 2004 and 2009, Casas didn’t take part in any Apuestas matches but he had many title reigns. He won the CMLL Tag belts with the hottest new star in lucha, Mistico. He also held the Middleweight Title for 874 days before losing to Averno. But in 2008 Casas turned back heel, joining up with his brothers again, along with Mr. Niebla to form La Peste Negra (The Black Plague). The group were more “comedic” than serious, with the wrestlers in the group wearing afro wigs and painting their faces black. (When I wrote "comedic", I meant the kind of comedy Tony Hinchcliffe would be into.) They would dance during their entrances and wrestle a less serious style. Metal would go on to leave the group, wishing to be more serious in his presentation, but the group lived on.
Now rudo again, Casas would feud with his former tag partner Mistico in the midst of the latter’s historic run as the biggest star in lucha. The pair would main-event the 76th Anniversary Show in the first Apuestas match Casas had had for five years, losing his hair to Mistico.
The 2010s saw Casas in my Mexico MVP Top 10 eight times in the decade. He won the Middleweight title for a second time, taking it from El Hijo del Fantasma – the man now better known as Santos Escobar to many. He went on to lose that belt to Jushin Liger at Wrestling Dontaku. Later in the year, Casas lost his hair to Charly Manson. This was his seventh Apuestas loss overall and fourth in this century, just 13 months after the loss to Mistico.
His status in CMLL as one of the elder statesmen that would help put over younger talent saw him feud with La Sombra, (Andrade to us all now) and win the NWA Historic Welterweight Title in the process.
Head shaving No.8 came in 2012 alongside Blue Panther when the pair wrestled each other to a draw, meaning both lost the bet and were forced to have their head shaved. The year also saw Casas take part in the annual Junior Tag competition in NJPW with the masked Japanese wrestler Bushi as his partner. Back then, the tourney was still in its single-elimination era, and the pair went down to the team of Taichi and Taka Michinoku in the first round.
A Christmas Day show that year in Arena México saw Casas beat Guerrero Maya Jr. in the midst of a feud between the pair which saw them in a series of matches against each other, as well as being forced to team in the annual Parejas Increibles tournament. Casas would go on to hold the Historic Welterweight belt that he successfully defended that Christmas Day until losing it June 2013 to Mascara Dorada I after a year-and-a-half reign.
2014 saw Casas win team titles in both trios and tag divisions in a feud between Peste Negra and the team of Dorada, Titan and Rush team before La Sombra turned heel to join Rush’s crew and they officially became the legendary faction Los Ingobernables. Rush would take the hair of Casas in the main event of El Juicio Final to close the last great feud that Negro Casas would have in his career.
Casas would continue to have great matches even into the second half of his 50s. There’s a really good match against Rey Hechicero in Promociones Reza in 2016, and he plays his part in one of the best Ciberneticos of the modern era of CMLL in 2017 at Super Viernes as well as in many really good trios matches as part of his rivalry with the second version of Mistico (after the OG Mistico went to WWE and the man now known as Dralistico took the mask on). But as the scene was changing Casas was used less and less and in 2023, Casas and his wife Dalys la Caribena left CMLL to join AAA.
Debuting at the Rey de Reyes tournament in a four-way against El Hijo del Vikingo, Myzteziz Jr. and Mecha Wolf, Casas would mainly feature in multi-man tags with some cameos in other promotions including a rare appearance in the US in the 21st century… (After a 1999 that saw him as a prominent feature of the SuperAstros project that went as well for WWE as the XFL, the Sugar Ray Leonard vs Donny Lalonde fight and WWE Studios.)
The Negro Casas vs Ultimo Dragon match at WrestleCon’s Mark Hitchcock Memorial Show was better than the Speedball Bailey vs Shigehiro Irie match on that card. And he had a match against Tony Deppen during the same WrestleMania week that is a shout for being the best match Deppen has had (that wasn’t with Zack Sabre Jr) since Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor. But when Casas landed back into Mexico, something happened. He stunk.
Bad match after bad match would assault the eyes of fans with the Nicho el Millonario match being the pick of the turds. Since WWE acquired AAA, Casas has hardly been seen since. He featured in a trios match with Vikingo and Pagano against Alberto del Patron and La Nueva Generación Dinamita which was really bad. Like, really bad and maybe that gave the people in charge (Jeremy Borash) the ammunition to not use Casas again. Also, the fact that he is 66, which makes him almost as old as R-Truth (I think).
Negro Casas's longevity is a major reason for his inclusion in this list – relevant in every decade from the 80s to the 2010s. Even for lucha, that is a long time … but that longevity had quality for most of its duration as well.
There are others of Casas’s generation of luchadores who rank higher than him but Casas played a big role in the story of two of them. El Hijo del Santo’s wrestling soulmate is Casas and vice versa, and Mistico’s time as one of wrestling’s biggest stars had Casas at its core. Quite simply, lucha libre and its story has Negro Casas as one of its main characters.
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