Hugo Savinovich

Hugo Savinovich (born February 15, 1959) is an Ecuadorian sports commentator and retired professional wrestler and professional wrestling manager.

He is currently signed to Lucha Libre AAA as a Spanish commentator.

Savinovich moved from Ecuador with his family of Croatian descent to the Bronx, New York in the 1960s.

Before becoming a commentator, he wrestled for many years, performing throughout Latin America in Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

He claims that becoming a professional wrestler literally saved his life, as he was originally a gang member in the streets of New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

He joined the sport under the guidance of Angel "El Toro" Maldonado.

Savinovich began his wrestling career in working for promoter Angel "El Toro" Maldonado in New York as the masked La Pantera Asesina.

He later worked for Mexican wrestling promoter Arturo Mendoza, who took him to Puerto Rico to work in his wrestling company based in the west part of the island.

Savinovich then moved on to the World Wrestling Council in 1978 was, where he was originally a "tecnico" (the Spanish wrestling term for a "face", or "good guy"); after breaking up with Mendoza and his original wrestling partner, Little Chief Cherokee, he joined the local World Wrestling Council franchise in Puerto Rico, Capitol Sport Promotions (owned partially by Carlos Colón), where he gained notoriety for being one of the "rudo" wrestlers (i.e., "heels", or wrestling villains), with a penchant for flamboyancy and self-promotion that gained him his most famous ring name, "El Muñecazo" ("The Big Baby Doll").

Savinovich is on record as stating that he modeled his role after Gorgeous George, although his looks were particular to him (long hair with a mullet and David Letterman-like gaped teeth).

Savinovich went on many occasions to Dominicana de Espectaculos in the Dominican Republic.

He would tour the United States for Western States Sports and Mid-South Wrestling in 1980 and Japan for All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1984.

Hugo managed some the most notorious heels in professional wrestling such as Abdullah the Butcher, Ox Baker, The Sheik and Buddy Landell until he had a fallout with Barrabas Sr. becoming a face in 1984.

Savinovich eventually became a partner at World Wrestling Council, only to split with Colón a few years after a rather acrimonious business dispute with the company management forced him to leave and joined the rival American Wrestling Federation.

Savinovich later became an announcer in the World Wrestling Council, when he replaced Rickin Sánchez who left the promotion in the fall of 1984.

In 1991, Savinovich would comeback to in-ring competition after seven years and feud with Billy Joe Travis, which would last a couple years in WWC and AWF.

During his wrestling run, he wrestled names like Bret Hart, Eric Embry and his biggest rival, El Profe.

He remained there until November 1991, when he joined the American Wrestling Federation who ran in opposition to the World Wrestling Council.

As a commentator, he used a high-pitched voice and fast narrative style, inspired from legendary Mexican sports announcer Gilberto Alberto Morales Villela, better known as Dr. Alfonso Morales, who was a prominent boxing and lucha libre play-by-play announcer and commentator.

He is best known as part of the Spanish language commentary team for the professional wrestling promotion WWE from 1994 to 2011.

In 1994, Savinovich accepted an offer from the World Wrestling Federation to work as a Spanish announcer.

He was paired with Carlos Cabrera to host the Spanish language versions of Raw, SmackDown, Superstars, NXT, and pay-per-view (PPV) events.

Savinovich and Cabrera provided live Spanish commentary for all weekly shows from the WWE Television Studios in Stamford, Connecticut and sat ringside for PPV events.

He had a high profile match when he teamed with Kane to defeat Chicky Starr and Victor The Bodyguard on April, 7 2001 for IWA Puerto Rico.

Savinovich had his retirement match on July 22, 2023 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, where he lost the match to El Profe.

While working for Arturo Mendoza, Mendoza noticed that Savinovich had the skills needed for a wrestling announcer.

This practice temporarily ended in mid-2006.

Originally due to the addition of the now-defunct ECW brand, the announce teams of all three brands were present for tri-branded pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series).

During this time, Savinovich and Cabrera provided commentary for these events from the WWE Television Studios, but were still placed at ringside for brand-exclusive PPV events.

The show celebrated its 100th episode in April 2006.

When the brand-exclusive pay-per-view concept ended in 2007, the announce teams of all three brands were placed at ringside for all PPV events.

Beginning in 2009, a single three-man announce team, composed of announcers from the two current brands, was designated for pay-per-views.

Savinovich and Cabrera returned to ringside for PPVs at The 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania in 2009.

However, they were not reinstated full-time until WrestleMania XXVI in 2010.

The Spanish announcers' table has become a staple in professional wrestling.

It is a convenient device for wrestlers to execute dramatic moves on, such as the Piledriver or the Pedigree.

The moves almost always result in the destruction of the table.

One of the most famous on-air incidents that Savinovich was involved in with WWE was at WrestleMania XIX, when he accidentally received a chair shot to the head from Hulk Hogan in the match between Hogan and Vince McMahon after McMahon ducked a chair shot.

He was unable to continue with the broadcast and Cabrera had to finish the show by himself.

Savinovich and Cabrera had a show at WWE.com called WWE En Español (WWE in Spanish), each episode of which lasted about 30 minutes; it was a recap of Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and pay-per-view events.