Negro Navarro (born June 12, 1957) is the ring name of Miguel Calderón Navarro, a Mexican professional wrestler. Navarro works as a freelancer on the Mexican independent circuit as well as making regular appearances for International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG). Navarro often teams with his sons, who are known as Trauma I and Trauma II. Negro Navarro was part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death") with El Signo and El Texano; a team that is credited with popularizing the Trios match in Mexico to the point that it became the most common match for teams in various professional wrestling promotions in the country.
Personal life
Navarro was born on June 12, 1957, in Mexico City and grew up idolizing the Mexican professional wrestler Black Shadow, deciding at a young age that he wanted to pursue the same career as his idol and become a professional wrestler. He trained under Florentino Martinez, a local Mexico City wrestling trainer. Later in life Navarro would marry a woman who was the cousin of his wrestling partner Juan Conrado Aguilar, also known as El Texano. Together they have two children who have also become professional wrestlers. They currently work as the enmascarado (masked) characters Trauma I and Trauma II, keeping their birth name private per lucha libre (the professional wrestling style originary from Mexico) traditions. Navarro is related through marriage to Juan Aguilar Leos, known in wrestling circles as El Texano, Jr and Super Nova, both sons of Juan Aguilar. Miguel Navarro's brothers are also wrestlers, working under the ring names Apolo Navarro and Drako. He is also related through marriage to wrestlers Jonathan de Jesus Navarro Jímenez (works under the name Mictlán), Juan Miguel Escalante Grande (known as Inquisidor), Pólvora (enmascarado) and Roberto Gutiérrez Frías, better known as El Dandy.
Professional wrestling career Unlike a lot of professional wrestlers in Mexico Navarro did not start out as an enmascarado, or masked wrestler, opting to simply go with a variation of his birth name as his ring name, Negro Navarro, (Spanish for "Black" Navarro), inspired by his childhood idol Black Shadow. He made his professional wrestling debut on June 12, 1975, his 18th birthday. At that point in time the heavyweight wrestlers were considered the "main events" and lighter wrestlers like Navarro were relegated to the lower ranks.
Los Misioneros de la Muerte In the late 1970s, Navarro began working for Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) as they wanted to feature more wrestlers in the lighter divisions to strengthen their shows, having seen how popular these divisions were starting to become elsewhere. UWA promoter Francisco Flores wanted to build some of the lesser known lightweights into high card workers and decided put Navarro together with two similarly sized wrestlers, El Texano and Antonio Sánchez Rendón, known under the ring name El Signo, to form Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death"). They were paired up against a trio of young, lightweight and high flying brothers dubbed Los Mosqueteros de Diablo (The Devil's Musketeers), Brazo de Oro ("Golden Arm"), Brazo de Plata ("Silver Arm") and El Brazo ("The Arm"). Early in the storyline Brazo de Oro defeated El Texano in a Luchas de Apuestas, or bet match, which forced El Texano to unmask. The storyline expanded and saw the unmasked Misionaros clash with the masked Mosqueteros on UWA promoted cards all over Mexico. The fan reception to those matches and the positive coverage in various Lucha Libre magazines was so big that other promoters around Mexico wanted to book them on their shows, not as individuals but as teams, which was the start of the trios match becoming more and more prominent in Lucha Libre. With the team being so in demand, UWA started to feature Los Misioneros more often and by 1981 Los Misioneros began working high on the card, often working the main event match starting a trend of having trios matches instead of singles matches as the regular main event match format, something that helped make that match format the most common match type in Lucha Libre since then.
In 1981 the Los Misioneros de la Muerte name became a household name after a match in El Toreo de Quatro Caminos ("The Bullring with four corners"), UWA's main venue. During the main event Los Misioneros faced off against then 64-year-old El Santo, teaming with Huracán Ramírez and Rayo de Jalisco. In that match El Santo collapsed in the middle of the ring, suffering a heart attack during the match. His life was only saved due to the quick witted actions of Ramírez. After the match the Lucha Libre magazines, prompted by Francisco Flores, played off the real life tragedy by promoting Los Misioneros as the team that nearly killed the biggest name in Lucha Libre ever. The event made the team the most hated trio in Mexico for years to come and helped fill El Torero arena to the brim when Los Misioneros teamed up with Perro Aguayo to face El Santo, Gory Guerrero, Huracán Ramírez and El Solitario in El Santo's retirement match. Following Santo's retirement Los Misioneros feuded with the top faces (wrestlers portraying "good guy" characters) such as Los Tres Caballero (Aníbal, El Solitario and Villano III) both in trios and in individual competition. During the storyline El Solitario turned on his two partners, when he attacked El Signo with a bottle and cost Los Tres Caballeros an important match. The attack made the smaller Los Misioneros more sympathetic to the crowd, who began to support them more and more despite Los Misioneros being booked on the shows as heel characters ("bad guys"). Their popularity as a trio also led to them being invited to tour Japan, facing off against New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) lightweight wrestlers such as Gran Hamada, Tiger Mask, George Takano, Akira Maeda, and Osamu Kido. In 1984 Los Misioneros won the UWA World Trios Championship for the first time, although the length of their reign is not documented. On January 1, 1985, Negro Navarro won his first singles championship, the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship, when he defeated the then champion Aníbal. The title run only lasted 50 days, ending on February 25, 1985 when he lost to Mano Negra. In the mid 1980s the "War" between the UWA and EMLL had cooled off enough for Los Misionerios to actually wrestle on the EMLL 53rd Anniversary Show, losing a trios Luchas de Apuestas to Ringo Mendoza, Américo Rocca, and Tony Salazar. Los Misionerios regained the UWA World Trios Championship in 1987 defeating Los Villanos (Villano III, Villano IV and Villano V), after what was considered the "peak" of Los Misionerios. With an influx of other popular trios both in the UWA and in Mexico in general Los Misioneros days on the top of the Trios scene came to an end, which was followed by the end of Los Missioneros de la Muerte in its original form. During a UWA World Trios Championship match against Los Villanos El Texano threw in the towel to save his partner El Signo any more punishment. After the match and title loss his partners turned on El Texano and attacked him. The attack was done primarily to write El Texano out of the UWA storyline as he had given notice that he was leaving.
UWA Promoter Francisco Flores decided to try to keep the Los Misioneros de la Muerte team active even after the departure of El Texano and experimented with a number of different partners for Navarro and El Signo. Teaming with the masked wrestler Black Power, Los Misioneros defeated Los Villanos (Villano I, Villano IV, and Villano V) to win the UWA Trios Championship. Negro Navarro won the UWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship from Shu El Guerrero on December 27, 1993, and held the title until the promotion closed in 1995. The trio held on to the Trios Championship for 454 days, until May 1, 1993, where they lost it to El Engendro, Shu El Guerrero, and Scorpio, Jr. They regained the championship later that year on December 25, and held it into 1994 where they lost the belts back to Engendro, Shu El Guerrero, and Scorpio, Jr. Black Power was later replaced by Rocky Santana and the new version of Los Misioneros won the UWA World Trios Championship on two occasions, and were the last team to hold the title before the UWA closed in 1995. Near the end of the UWA Los Misioneros made a few appearances for AAA, UWA's successor of sorts and one of the two biggest wrestling promotions along with CMLL. The appearances included a match at Triplemanía III-A where a version of Los Misioneros (Navarro, Signo, and a masked wrestler called "Misionero") defeated the team of El Torero, El Mexicano, and Dragón de Oro.
Independent circuit After the closure of the UWA in 1995 Negro Navarro and El Signo split up, going their separate ways on the independent circuit, only teaming together on special occasions. One such occasion was for the Salvador Lutteroth Memorial Tag Tournament held as part of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL; formerly known as EMLL)'s 1999 Homenaje a Dos Leyendas: El Santo y Salvador Lutteroth show on March 19, 1999. Navarro and El Signo teamed up to represent the "old school" wrestlers of Lutteroth's era and defeated Olímpico and Tony Rivera in the first round of the tournament. In the semi-finals they lost to eventual tournament winners Mr. Niebla and Shocker. In the mid-1990s Navarro had a brief stint as the masked character Último Vampiro, although others used the name and character after him and are more identified with that name. In 2003 Navarro worked a number of matches for AAA, including a match where the original Los Misioneros were reunited for AAA's 2003 Guerra de Titanes show where they defeated El Brazo, Sangre Chicana, and Pirata Morgan. He also worked a few shows as "El Chupacabras", a masked gimmick invented by AAA but abandoned it after only a few shows. Navarro and El Signo began teaming with Juan Aguilar Leos, son of El Texano who had adopted the ring name El Texano, Jr.
La Dinastia de la Muerte