On yesterdays CMLL’s weekly talk show “Informa”, the show kicked off with the daughter of the late Francisco Alonso Lutteroth, also known by many as Paco Alonso. Sofia described the events that led to Paco’s death. With great strength and reservation, holding tears back, Sofia described it as him waking up on the morning of July 5th, 2019, when he fainted and collapsed. After being picked up, he was taken to the hospital still alive, but soon after had died of a heart attack. Paco left behind the CMLL promotion and all of the business behind it. Ms. Alonso has been a part of the inner workings of the business for the last couple of years, most likely being groomed to take the reigns.
When asked about why the news was kept so quiet, Sofia says this was out of respect for her father due to him always keeping a low profile, and she and her mother’s mindset was to maintain that respect and to maintain his value and the cremation to those that were extremely close to the family. She didn’t want to make it public until after the cremation. She thought that different interpretations of her dad would be expressed differently if the news came out right away from the public.
Sofia was asked what the future holds for the oldest pro wrestling promotion in the world, she replied with how maintaining her new role was the worst possible way she could earn the new position and then continued with staying that nothing would change with the company and that the first thing would be to conserve everything about the company and to keep close to one another as a family. She said that they will not change, they will value her father’s vision and move upward and onward. When there’s room for the opportunity to benefit the company she and company will go ahead and explore those opportunities.
She continues stressing the value of the lucha mask and keeping that part of the culture of lucha libre consistent with its roots and culture, but that when there is another area of opportunity with the company, the idea will always be to maintain the companies roots when making decisions. She ends the conversation with what the legacy is that he passed on her. She says that he left her with having the respect for the company and all it’s people, that respect was the most valuable thing to her.
She closes with a message to the talent, saying that there will always be an open door with the talent and that the talent is the most valuable part of the company. Because of them, everyone else working is able to feed their families. Sofia closes with information of a public mass at 12 pm this Friday, July 12th, 2019 in honor of her father, Paco Alonso.
