El Gran Luchadore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time.
This article has been tagged since February 2007.

El Gran Luchadore

El Gran Luchadore is the name of a masked Mexican professional wrestling character in World Wrestling Entertainment, seen on its SmackDown! brand in 2004. El Gran Luchadore (loosely translated from Spanish to "The Great Fighter/Wrestler," "Luchadore" is also an incorrect spelling, luchador is the correct spelling) was mainly used as a jobber gimmick to put over other wrestlers.

The first WWE superstar to wrestle as the El Gran Luchadore was Paul London on June 22, 2004 in a squash match against John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL), Paul Heyman convinced Bradshaw to accept a match with the "Mexican Heavyweight Champion" after hearing that El Gran Luchadore punked out Bradshaw at an airport.

Next up was Shannon Moore on July 8 2004, billed as the "champion of Mexico", would face WWE Champion JBL in a champion vs. champion match (no titles on the line). A second squash match for JBL took an unexpected turn when El Gran Luchadore pulled a switcharoo with Eddie Guerrero (in El Gran's costume) who came back fighting. When JBL finally clued that it was Guerrero, he ran away from the ring getting counted out in the process, allowing El Gran Luchadore to pick up his first victory.

The next appearance of El Gran Luchadore was on July 15, 2004 edition of SmackDown!. During a Steel Cage between Guerrero and JBL which saw both men sat on top of the Cage, exchanging punches until El Gran Luchadore ran down and climbed Into the Cage, this El Gran Luchadore held onto Eddie Guerrero's leg, allowing Bradshaw to climb down the side of the cage to win. After the match El Gran Luchadore tried to get out of the locked door, but then decided to climb out the way he came in. Eddie Guerrero got to his feet and climbed up the cage and pulled the mask off of El Gran Luchadore, revealing him to be the supposedly injured Kurt Angle.