Paco Alonso | |
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Residence | Mexico City, Mexico |
Professional wrestling career | |
Ring name(s) | Farncisco Alonso Lutteroth Paco Alonso |
Debut | 1975 |
Francisco Alonso Lutteroth (b. 1954), commonly referred to as Paco Alonso is the owner of the professional wrestling promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), the world's oldest wrestling promotion. Alonso is the grandson of CMLL founder Salvador Lutteroth and took control of the company in 1980
Paco Alonso is the son of the daughter of Salvador Lutteroth, who founded the promotion under the name La Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL). Alonso began working for EMLL in 1975 around the same time as Salvador Lutteroth's son, Chavo Lutteroth, took control of the promotion. Over the next five years Alonso worked in a promotional capaticy while Chavo Lutteroth ran the company, Lutteroth did not command the same respect as his father and by 1980 he handed over control and later ownership to Paco Alonso. Who had the ability and intelligence to make the company evolve and succeed.
Alonso relatively reclusive from the public eye and has only given a few interviews in his time in charge of the promotion. However, it is estimated that he has been responsible for cumulatively drawing over 80,000,000 fans throughout his career at CMLL, based on 24 shows a week each with 2,000 attendance. Alonso was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame class of 2008 with a 73% vote. Along with Martín Karadagian, he was one of only two inductees for the year.
Alonso's leadership style has been described as "Hands off", normally content to leave the match making to his booking team and staying out of the day to day leadership of the promotion. Alonso is also known for holding a grudge against certain wrestlers he feels has betrayed him, having banned both Octagón and Konnan from CMLL forever and even refused to pay tribute to Antonio Peña after his death. More recently there was a falling out between El Hijo del Santo and CMLL that led Alonso to decree that none of CMLL's working partners were to use El Hijo del Santo on their shows, and when International Wrestling Revolution Group refused Alonso broke off a seven-year working relationship with the promotion.