El Texano

Juan Conrado Aguilar Jáuregui (November 26, 1958 – January 15, 2006), better known by his ring name El Texano, was a Mexican Luchador, or professional wrestler.

From the early 1970s to the early 2000s, he wrestled under masked and unmasked monikers for various promotions including Universal Wrestling Association (UWA), World Wrestling Council (WWC), World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA).

His son Juan Aguilar Leos wrestles under the name El Texano, Jr. in tribute to his father and another son wrestles as the masked Super Nova.

During his professional wrestling career Aguilar helped populate the concept of the Trios match (teams of three facing off in a tag team match) in Lucha Libre, as a part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death"; Texano, El Signo and Negro Navarro).

He also worked for an extensive period of time with Silver King, collectively known as Los Cowboys, working both in Japan and the United States of America, achieving notoriety outside of his native Mexico.

Juan Aguilar was born and raised in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico but would later move to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico where he lived until his death.

Aguilar and his Guadalajara native wife had three sons together, two of whom became professional wrestlers, Juan Aguilar Leos who works under the ring name El Texano, Jr. and Super Nova, who is an enmascarado (Masked wrestler) and thus his birth name is not publicized.

He is the uncle of professional wrestlers Jonathan de Jesus Navarro Jímenez (works under the name Mictlán), Juan Miguel Escalante Grande (known as Inquisidor) and Pólvora (enmascarado).

He is the cousin of professional wrestler Roberto Gutiérrez Frías, better known as El Dandy.

Aguilar began training for a career in Lucha Libre (professional wrestling) at a very early age after receiving his parents' consent to do so.

In the late 1970s Aguilar, as El Texano, began working for EMLL's biggest rival the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) as they wanted to feature more wrestlers in the lighter divisions to strengthen their shows.

UWA promoter Francisco Flores wanted to build some of the lesser known lightweights into high card workers and decided to build a storyline between the masked El Texano and the recently debut Brazo de Oro ("Golden Hand"), which later expanded to include Brazo de Oro's younger brothers Brazo de Plata ("Silver Arm") and El Brazo ("The Arm").

The Brazo brothers were given the team name Los Mosqueteros de Diablo (The Devil's Musketeers) while El Texano began teaming with Antonio Sánchez Rendón, known under the ring name El Signo ("The Sign") and Miguel Navarro, better known as Negro Navarro.

The team was dubbed Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death").

Early on 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, including El Signo winning the UWA World Welterweight Championship, a title he would later lose to El Gringo, who in turn would lose the belt to El Texano in order to legitimize him as a wrestler.

He made his wrestling debut on February 1, 1972 at the age of 13.

In Mexico becoming a wrestler at such a young age is rare, but not unheard of if parental consent is given.

He made his debut as an enmascarado (masked wrestler) using the ring name "Billy the Kid", portraying a Cowboy character.

Aguilar continued to train under Antonio Cruz in the years following his debut as he worked under a number of different enmascarado characters such as Ry Navarro, El Vaquero ("The Cowboy"), Juan El Texano and Johnny Texas.

After working primarily in and around his native state of Baja California he started making appearances in Mexico City around 1975, working for Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), the world's oldest and one of Mexico's biggest professional wrestling promotions.

During one show in Arena Coliseo, EMLL's secondary venue, a lucha libre magazine writer suggested he should simply work as "El Texano" ("The Texan"), a ring name Aguilar used from that point on until his death.

While working for EMLL he also began training with Guadalajara, Jalisco based wrestling trainer Cuauhtémoc "Diablo" Velasco, one of the most famous wrestling trainers in Mexico.

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.

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 magazinez, 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. At one point Villano III defeated El Texano in a Luchas de Apuestas match, forcing El Texano to be shaved bald as a result of the loss. During the storyline El Solitario turned on his two partners, when he attacked El Signo with a bottle and costing 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 the heels ("bad guy" characters). Their popularity as a trio also led to them being invited to tour Japan, facing off against New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) light weight 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 it is not documented for exactly how long.

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 after the match.

The attack was done primarily to write El Texano out of the UWA storyline as he had given notice that he was leaving.