Blue Panther

Blue Panther
Birth name	Genaro Vazquez Nevarez
Born	(1960-09-18) September 18, 1960[1] Gómez Palacio, Durango, Mexico[2]
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Blue Panther[3]
Billed height	1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)[2]
Billed weight	98 kg (216 lb)[2]
Billed from	Gómez Palacio, Durango[2]
Trained by	Héctor López Halcón Suriano
Debut	October 8, 1978

Genaro Vazquez Nevarez (born September 18, 1960) is a Mexican professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Blue Panther. The "Blue" part of his ring name is an homage to Aníbal, a wrestler he looked up to growing up who wore a blue mask. He works for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), the same promotion for which two of his sons debuted in January 2014, working under the ring names Cachorro and Black Panther.^[4]

Professional wrestling career

Blue Panther began wrestling in northern Mexico in the late 1970s before getting noticed by wrestler and promoter René Guajardo in Monterrey. Guarjardo got Panther booked in Universal Wrestling Association and Panther made his debut in their main building, El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos in Naucalpan, in 1981. He wrestled on the undercard as a rudo (heel) before getting his first push in 1984 by winning the UWA World Welterweight Championship from veteran worker Matemático.^[5] He had a feud with Black Man that saw him lose his UWA Welterweight title but win Black Man's mask in 1986. During the remainder of his UWA career, he won the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship from Gran Hamada and traded the title back and forth with Solar I and won the mask of Kendo.

In 1991, he jumped to Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre and began a feud with Atlantis over the NWA World Middleweight Championship. Although Blue Panther was unsuccessful in his August title challenge, the feud established him as a top rudo in EMLL, leading to him defeating El Satánico to become the first CMLL World Middleweight Champion after the company changed names and created new championships. In late 1991, he began feuding with Love Machine. Their April 1992 "Mask vs. Mask" mask, where Love Machine was disqualified for using an illegal Martinete (piledriver), sold out Arena México and 8,000 fans watched the match on big screens outside the arena.

The following month, he jumped to Antonio Peña's new Asistencia, Asesoría y Administración (AAA) promotion and continued his feud with Love Machine with a "hair vs. mask" match win in July 1993. The match featured a double turn which led to Love Machine becoming a rudo and forming Los Gringos Locos with Eddy Guerrero. Much of his time in AAA was spent in programs based on the Mexican National Middleweight Championship. He worked programs with Ángel Azteca, Super Astro, Solar I and Octagón. After the downturn of the Mexican economy, he started his own promotion with several business partners called PROMELL (later Promo Azteca). When the promotion failed, he returned to AAA briefly in 1997 but he was unhappy being programmed with Máscara Sagrada, Jr. and jumped to CMLL by the end of the year. In 1998, Panther teamed with Dr. Wagner, Jr. and his real-life nephew Black Warrior to form "Los Laguneros." The team won a tournament to win the vacant CMLL World Trios Championship. In 1999, Panther and Wagner teamed to feud with Negro Casas and El Hijo del Santo over the CMLL World Tag Team Championship with an unsuccessful title challenge in September of that year. In 2000 and 2001, Los Laguneros successfully defended their titles against Los Villanos (Villano III, IV, and V) and the team of Negro Casas, Emilio Charles Jr., and Tarzan Boy while Blue Panther had a singles feud with Olímpico.

In 2002, Black Warrior left Los Laguneros and the trios championship was vacated. Fuerza Guerrera replaced Black Warrior on the team and they won another tournament for the CMLL World Trios title but they reigned for only three months before dropping the titles to Black Warrior, Atlantis, and Mr. Niebla. Over time, Blue Panther was getting booked more as a técnico (face) and began to team with former rivals, Atlantis, Lizmark Jr., and Mr. Niebla as La Ola Azul ("The Blue Wave") in a feud with Los Guerreros del Infierno. In 2004, Atlantis and Blue Panther defeated Último Guerrero and Rey Bucanero to win the CMLL World Tag Team Championship. Three months after successfully defending the title against Olímpico and Rey Bucanero, Atlantis and Panther lost the championship to the team of Averno and Mephisto in April 2005. When Atlantis turned rudo, Panther feuded with him intermittently and the two often ripped at each other's masks, hinting at a possible mask vs. mask match. On September 19, 2008, he lost his mask to Villano V in Mexico. He was unmasked as Genaro Vazquez Nevarez.^[6]

In late 2011, Blue Panther began feuding with La Peste Negra ("The Black Plague"; Negro Casas and El Felino), which led to the main event of Sin Piedad on December 16, where Panther faced El Felino in a Hair vs. Hair match. A week prior to the match, Panther was disqualified in a tag team match, after giving El Felino a Martinete. This led to the Distrito Federal Box y Lucha Commission announcing that Panther was suspended for two weeks, starting after the December 16 event.^[7] At Sin Piedad, El Felino tried to exact revenge on Panther, but was disqualified after the referee caught him going for a Martinete. As a result, El Felino was shaved bald.^[8] On March 2, 2012, at Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, Panther and Negro Casas wrestled to a draw in a Lucha de Apuesta and were, as a result, both shaved bald.^[9] In March 2013 Blue Panther was forced to team up with the rudo Rey Escorpión to participate in the 2013 Torneo Nacional de Parejas Increibles ("National Incredible Pairs Tournament"), a tag team tournament teaming up wrestlers who would never team up otherwise. The two defeated Delta and Tiger in the first round, but lost to the team of Dragón Rojo Jr. and Niebla Roja in the quarter finals.^[10][11] On September 13 at CMLL's 80th Anniversary Show, Blue Panther lost his hair to Averno in a submissions only Lucha de Apuestas.^[12][13]

Championships and accomplishments

• Asistencia Asesoría y Administración
  • Mexican National Middleweight Championship (2 times)^[3]
• Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
  • CMLL World Middleweight Championship (1 time)^[3]
  • CMLL World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Atlantis^[14]
  • CMLL World Trios Championship (2 times) – with Black Warrior and Dr. Wagner, Jr. (1)^[3] and Dr. Wagner, Jr. and Fuerza Guerrera (1)^[15]
  • Mexican National Trios Championship (3 times) – with Fuerza Guerrera and Psicosis (1)^[3] and Fuerza Guerrera and El Signo (2)^[3]
  • Torneo Gran Alternativa (1999 (I)) – with Último Guerrero^[16]
  • Leyenda de Azul (2000)
• Pro Wrestling Illustrated
  • PWI ranked him 56 of the 500 best singles wrestlers of the PWI 500 in 1998
• Universal Wrestling Association
  • UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship (2 times)^[3]
  • UWA World Welterweight Championship (1 time)^[3][5]
• World Wrestling Association
  • WWA World Middleweight Championship (1 time)^[3]
  • WWA World Welterweight Championship (1 time)^[3]

Luchas de Apuestas record

Footnotes

References