{"id":70338,"date":"2020-06-07T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T18:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=70338"},"modified":"2020-06-11T14:47:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T18:47:58","slug":"former-cmll-uwa-veteran-el-impala-passes-away-at-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/06\/07\/former-cmll-uwa-veteran-el-impala-passes-away-at-68\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CMLL &#038; UWA Veteran El Impala Passes Away at 68"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More sad news from the world of lucha libre, as <strong>Andr\u00e9s Gonz\u00e1lez<\/strong>, who competed under many masked personas throughout his life as <strong>El Impala, Blackman II, Arana Negra<\/strong>, and <strong>Bello Incognito<\/strong>, passed away from heart failure on Sunday, June 7. He had been previously hospitalized on May 30 for COVID-19. He was 68 years old.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">With great sadness we learn of the death in the Lucha world of Don Andr\u00e9s Gonz\u00e1lez, better known as El Impala. Author of the book &quot;Promise Fulfilled&quot;, a great rudo who also used the names of Black Man II, Arana Negra and Bello Incognito. Our deepest condolances to his family <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PH4YX9Ytnc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PH4YX9Ytnc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Cauliflower Alley Club (@CACReunion) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CACReunion\/status\/1269662497075679232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 7, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Gonz\u00e1lez began competing in 1975, originally under the name <strong>Garryk<\/strong>, before switching to his most famous moniker, El Impala. As El Impala, he became one of the top lightweight stars in the Mexican circuit, even competing with <strong>Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre<\/strong> (EMLL, the precursor to CMLL).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-70397\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/06\/Impalax62-e1591900509748.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"364\" height=\"500\"><\/p>\n<p>By the mid-80s, he was convinced to turn\u00a0<em>exotico\u00a0<\/em>by promoter and wrestler <strong>Ra\u00fal &#8220;El Moritas&#8221; Reyes,\u00a0<\/strong>becoming the more flamboyant Bello Incognito. Working as an\u00a0<em>exotico\u00a0<\/em>wasn&#8217;t something Gonz\u00e1lez was entirely behind, and he once again returned to the masked life as Blackman II, but that character change was even less successful. He would also try a Spider-Man gimmick, <strong>Arana Negra\u00a0<\/strong>(Black Spider). While he continued to compete as Bello Incognito with CMLL, in the <strong>Universal Wrestling Association (UWA)<\/strong> he would continue to compete as El Impala.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shogun vs. Bello Incognito - Mask match Highlights\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LJgCkRU9hZc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As his wrestling career wound down in the late 1990s, he found himself appearing more and more on Legends shows and also working as a motivational speaker. El Impala marks the latest lucha passing linked to complications from COVID, with recent passings like <a href=\"https:\/\/criteriohidalgo.com\/la-copa\/sumo-virus-nueva-victima-en-la-lucha-libre\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Super Bracito<\/strong> <\/a>(June 5), <strong><span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2020\/06\/04\/aaa-uwa-luchador-matematico-ii-passes-away-at-50\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matem\u00e1tico II<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span>(June 4), and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/2020\/06\/02\/dragon-chino-ii-rip\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dragon Chino II<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(June 2) all being ruled due to COVID complications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>LWOPW sends out our deepest condolences to the entire Gonz\u00e1lez family, as well as El Impala&#8217;s fans, friends, and colleagues. Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop.\u00a0You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More sad news from the world of lucha libre, as Andr\u00e9s Gonz\u00e1lez, who competed under many masked personas throughout his life as El Impala, Blackman II, Arana Negra, and Bello Incognito, passed away from heart failure on Sunday, June 7. He had been previously hospitalized on May 30 for COVID-19. He was 68 years old. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":70398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,547,6],"tags":[6517,6516],"class_list":["post-70338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cmll","category-in-memorium","category-north-america","tag-bello-incognito","tag-el-impala"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}