El Canek

Felipe Estrada (born June 19, 1952), known as El Canek or simply Canek, is a Mexican luchador enmascarado or masked professional wrestler best known for the 20 years he worked for the Universal Wrestling Association where he held the UWA World Heavyweight Championship a total of 15 times.

Felipe Estrada was born in Frontera, Tabasco, Mexico on June 19, 1952.

He is the older brother of wrestlers Príncipe Maya and El Danés and the uncle of wrestler Rey Maya, the son of Príncipe Maya.

Estrada himself has at least two sons, one wrestles as El Hijo del Canek ("The Son of El Canek") and another that has been introduced as Canek Jr., but who has not wrestled.

Hijo del Canek is sometimes billed as Canek Jr., confusing him with his much younger brother.

Estrada began training for his professional wrestling career in the nearby town of Villahermosa, Tabasco training under Indio Azteca, Maciste, El Remington I and El Chacal for his professional wrestling career.

While training for a professional wrestling career he also learned the basics of Olympic style wrestling and also competed in bodybuilding competitions.

His in-ring debut came about earlier than expected as a local wrestling promoted asked Estrada to fill in for a wrestler who could not make that night's show.

He made his debut that night working as the enmascarado (Masked wrestler) El Universitario ("The Academic" or College Student), a name that reflected that he was still in wrestling school.

As Universitario he teamed up with Ángel Azul and fought against the team of El Profeta and El Chilango Garcia.

Later when he was ready to make his full-time debut Estrada bought a spare mask, boots and tights from Ángel Azul and began working as 'Príncipe Azul ("The Blue Prince").

As Príncipe Azul he found a lot of initial success, combining his mat skills with his very muscular physique, something less common in those days and ended up unmasking Ultratumba after defeating him in a Luchas de Apuestas, or bet match and later on would also force Ultratumba to be shaved bald.

Later on he also won the hair of El Noruego as well.

He made his debut in 1972 as "El Universitario" at the age of 18 and would later work under the name "Principe Azul" (Spanish for "The Blue Prince").

His early success as Príncipe Azul led to him being named the Villahermosa rookie of the year in 1972.

In 1973 he adopted the ring name El Canek, a name inspired by the Mayan Indian leader Jacinto Canek, that he has used ever since.

While he has worked in Mexico for the majority of his career he has also made several, frequent, tours of Japan and has worked in the United States as well as Europe.

In Lucha Libre it is tradition to keep the real name of any masked wrestler secret from the general audience; the newspapers and magazines in Mexico do not speculate on them, nor do they publish clear photos of their faces.

In early 1973 Estrada decided he needed a new image, a unique image not based on the mask of his former partner.

Inspired by the Mayan Indian warrior leader Jacinto Canek came up with the name of "El Canek", complete with a redesigned mask and tights that incorporated mayana patterns and symbols.

He worked his first match as "El Canek" (billed as "Kanek" for that one match only) in the Torero de Cuatro Caminos in Naucalpan, Mexican State, an arena he would sell out repeatedly later in his career.

Shortly after his debut El Canek moved to Mexico City, working for Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL) while also training at "Gym Ham Lee" under head trainer Felipe Ham Lee as well as Sugi Sito and Fantasma de la Quebrada.

During his time with EMLL he would often tour the Northern territories for promoter René Guajardo.

At that point he won the Northern Mexico Heavyweight Championship defeating Jose Torres, a man he would later also defeat in a Luchas de Apuestas match.

Working mainly in the north El Canek won several headline matches, including unmasking El Destroyer and Lemus as well as winning the hair of Dory Dixon, Sunny War Cloud and Ruben Juarez but never worked regularly in EMLL's main territory in and around Mexico City.

In 1974 EMLL founder and owner Salvador Lutteroth brought his son into the promotion, grooming him to take over when the aging Lutteroth, Sr. eventually had to retire.

This action combined with a very rigid and conservative promotional philosophy led EMLL's Promoter in Naucalpan, Mexico State, Francisco Flores, EMLL wrestler and trainer Ray Mendoza and investor Benjamin Mora, Jr. to break away from EMLL to form their own company called the Universal Wrestling Association.

With the impending change of management in EMLL many wrestlers who had previously been loyal to Lutteroth decided to leave with Flores, Mendoza and Mora including promoters René and Karloff Lagarde as well as number of young wrestles, including El Canek who were frustrated with the lack of opportunities in EMLL.

They held their first show on January 29, 1975, with El Canek teaming up with former rivals Dory Dixon and Sunny War Cloud to lose the semi-main event to the team of Mil Máscaras, Ray Mendoza and El Solitario.

One of the early draws in the UWA was Mil Máscaras, but he began taking more and more bookings in both the United States and Japan, leaving little time for the UWA between tours, coupled with the age of two of the most recognizable wrestlers in the UWA, Mendoza and Guajardo, the UWA bookers were looking to create new headliners, with the two front runners being the tecnico (wrestling term for those that portray the "good guys") Dos Caras (brother of Mil Máscaras) and El Canek who played the part of a brutal, cheating rudo (those that portray the "bad guys") El Canek.

The UWA decided to have El Canek defeat Dr. Wagner to win the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship on January 15, 1978.

The title run was used to build a storyline feud between El Canek and Dos Caras as Caras was immediately positioned as the next challenger and actually won the championship from El Canek on June 20, 1978 During the feud the fans responded favorably to the two wrestlers as each played their part to perfection, the physically imposing El Canek used his strength to dominate and gloat his way to becoming a rudo that the fans would gladly pay admission to see get beat up while Dos Caras became the quintessential tecnico, the hero of the people who overcame the odds and defeated the bad guys, while also being a very talented wrestler.

On September 27, 1978, El Canek defeated the legendary Lou Thesz to win the UWA World Heavyweight Championship, a move that signaled that he was now the "top name" in the UWA, gaining international attention by defeating the multi-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion Thesz.

Around the time that El Canek became the world champion the UWA also struck deals with various international wrestling promotions to exchange wrestlers to allow for an influx of foreign wrestlers.

The main partner for the UWA was New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) that started sending some of their top wrestlers to Mexico in exchange for El Canek, Dos Caras and others making frequent tours of Japan in exchange.

As the major heavyweight working for the Universal Wrestling Association promotion, he became one of Lucha Libre's biggest attractions during the 1980s especially through his high-profile matches against non-Mexicans that sold out numerous shows and led to the UWA using the same formula of "Canek vs. the foreigner" for over a decade.

One such NJPW wrestler was Tiger Jeet Singh, who came to Mexico and had a short feud with El Canek before winning the UWA Heavyweight Championship on February 17, 1980.

El Canek's unsuccessful challenges for Tiger Jeet Singh's championship drew sellout crowds for months.

Almost a year later El Canek finally brought the championship "back" to Mexico defeating Tiger Jeet Sing on February 15.

In the case of El Canek his real name is known since he competed in a Mixed Martial Arts match where he was billed as "Felipe "El Canek" Estrada, and actually fought with his mask on. Estrada has one son who is also a luchador under the name El Hijo del Canek ("The Son of El Canek") and a second, much younger, son who was introduced as "Canek Jr." but who has not yet worked any matches. Outside of the UWA Estrada has also worked for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), AAA, International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG) and a host of other Mexican independent promotions and appeared on the 1997 Royal Rumble pay-per-view for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). He is a former holder of the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship, CMLL World Tag Team Championship, CMLL World Trios Championship, IWRG Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship and the 2002 Rey de Reyes.