Post by Torgaman on Mar 9, 2007 11:05:32 GMT -8
Alejandro Cruz "Black Shadow" has passed away last night at the age of 81.Shadow is best remembered for the classic and defining mask vs mask match he had with El Santo in 1952.The masked wrestler originaly appeared in the late forties in the Lutteroth promotion and rapidly bumped heads with the already established Santo.At the time Santo had his tag team partner Gori Guerrero to watch his back so Shadow relied on his compadre,billed as his "brother" Blue Demon.Eventually the back and forth bloody matches led to the historic 1952 bout in which Shadow lost his mask for all time.Shadow then unfortunately became overshadowed[no pun intended] by the rivalry that was sparked from this match between Santo and Blue Demon.The unmasked Shadow kept on wrestling but it was obvious that unmasked he lacked alot of the charisma he had as a masked worker.Still he kept his feud with Santo going well into the early sixties,and when Santo turned tecnico Shadow wound up becoming an irregular tag team partner with him.Shadow also appeared in a number of films,but never in a starring role,always as part of an entourage of wrestlers.He also doubled for Blue Demon in some films when Demon was injured.Though Shadow never re-masked in the ring he did don the Black Shadow mask one last time for the film LOS CAMPEONES JUSTICIEROS.Shadow kept working well into the early 80's but called it quits soon after.Alejandro Cruz was born on May 3rd 1921 and died on March 8th 2007.