Omar Mijares
| Born |
April 22, 1938 Caracas, Venezuela |
|---|---|
| Residence | San Antonio, Texas |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) |
Omar Atlas Buddy Moreno Buddy Marino Super Gladiator Buddy Silver Wolf Super Steele Omar Negro |
| Billed height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) |
| Billed weight | 240 lb (110 kg) |
| Trained by | Jene Howard |
| Debut | 1958 |
| Retired | 1993 |
Omar Mijares is a retired Venezuelan professional wrestler, best known by his ring name Omar Atlas, who competed in North American and international promotions including the National Wrestling Alliance, Stampede Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation from the late 1950s until the early 1990s. A longtime ally of Venezuelan wrestler Cyclone Negro, he was often billed as his younger half-brother Omar Negro when teaming with him in NWA Southwest Sports during the 1960s and later in Championship Wrestling from Florida during the 1970s.
He was also a popular star in Latin America wrestling as Super Steele in Mexico and Super Gladiator in Puerto Rico as well as Buddy Moreno in the southwestern United States.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Mijares became involved in amateur wrestling as a youth and later competed and won a silver medal at the Pan-American Games in 1958. Traveling to Spain soon after, he began acting as a cornerman for friend and former olympian Cyclone Negro. Eventually persuaded by Negro to enter professional wrestling, he began training under Jene Howard in Barcelona before making his debut before the end of the year. Spending eight months in Spain, he eventually moved on to Colombia and spent the next four years wrestling throughout Latin America as well as returning to Spain from time to time.
In 1962, he was one of several South American wrestlers brought into Houston by Cyclone Negro and billed by promoter Morris Sigel as Cyclone Negro's storyline brother Omar Negro.
Leaving Houston a year later Mijares toured the United States with the National Wrestling Alliance wrestling in numerous regional territories including for promoters such as Paul Boesch, Sam Muchnick, Nick Gulas, Eddie Graham, Jim Crockett, Vince McMahon, Sr., Joe Blanchard and Carlos Colon. He would also become a leading star in San Francisco for Roy Shire, Don Owen's Pacific Northwest Wrestling and Bob Geigel's NWA Central States where he would remain one of the area's most popular stars throughout the 1970s. Feuding with NWA North American Tag Team Champions Yasu Fuji & Chati Yokouchi during early 1972, he and Danny Little Bear would twice capture the tag team titles before finally losing the titles to them in Wichita, Kansas on March 9, 1972. Several months later, he would also defeat Harley Race for the NWA Central States Heavyweight Championship in St. Joseph, Missouri on July 7 holding the title for half a year before losing to Roger Kirby in December.
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