A former cliff-diver and bodybuilder, Lizmark used to attend every Wednesday night Acapulco's Arena Coliseo and decided to get involved in lucha after being encouraged to it by popular EMLL referee Roberto "El Güero" Rangel, who thought that the young guy had good genetics for lucha. An interesting, and little known fact about Lizmark is that he really is from Llano Grande, Oaxaca, but he feels like Acapulco is his hometown because he was raised and lived there until he moved to Mexico City.
Lizmark was a natural athlete all his life. Before becoming a wrestler, he won several swimming championships, was a cliffdiver, competed in boxing, and was a bodybuilder (he was Mr. Acapulco, Mr. Gimnasio and Mr. Guerrero). He had a job as a bartender in an hotel and he was making very good money, but his athletic spirit dictated him to become a luchador.
After doing training with Braulio Mendoza during three years, four hours a day, he started wrestling in Acapulco. In his debut match, he teamed with El Extraño against Ranger and his maestro, Braulio Mendoza.
He has always used the same "war name" - Lizmark, a name he took from the warship Bismark which was once at Acapulco's dock, he just changed the sound of because in case that a wrestler from the Distrito Federal had already chosen the same name, if Lizmark made it to Mexico City, he'd have to use another name because the D.F. wrestler would already have the license for that name.
At the time, Lizmark was one of the leaders of the new generation of revolutionary daredevil high flyers that while still being excellent mat workers, used new futuristic style masks and impressive moves like flying dropkicks. Of course the flying dropkick is a really common lucha move nowadays, but back then it was considered state-of-the-art flying. Lizmark is also credited as being one of the first wrestlers to ever use the powerbomb in Mexico as a finisher.
During his rookie days, he captured his first title when he became the State of Guerrero Tag Team Champion with Bowman after defeating Centauro and Chanoc. They defended them successfully five times but lost them to Chanoc and Gurkan. He also became the Guerrero Middleweight champion after beating Centauro. He defended it 10 times and vacated it because he was leaving the circuit to focus on his Mexico City career.
The promoters from EMLL quickly saw his superstar potential and just three years after his debut he won his first major title - the Mexican National Welterweight Championship he got the 4/18/79 defeating Américo Rocca in his hometown of Acapulco. It would take almost a year (03/29/80) to Americo to regain back his title, but this time the trade was in Mexico City. Of course, Lizmark then would move on to bigger and better things as three months after his loss he got the NWA World Welterweight Championship by defeating El Supremo (6/4/80) in Acapluco. He'd lose that title the 10/23/81 against La Fiera, in Mexico City.
He put on some muscle weight and moved up to the Middleweight ranks. Now he had a chance to fight different wrestlers like the one that would eventually become his best opponent ever - Satánico. Lizmark defeated Satanico to get the Mexican National Middleweight Championship first (2/19/82) and then the NWA World Middleweight Championship later (6/3/83). Before getting the NWA title, Lizmark had already lost the National title against Espectro Jr. II (3/3/83 in Cuernavaca, Morelos). Six months, on December 2, he lost the NWA title against the former champion, Satanico.
In 1984, Lizmark had a Japanese tour for All Japan Pro Wrestling but unlike some of his Mexican counterparts, he didn't get really over with the fans there. Dave Meltzer states that this was because his matches looked way too coreographed. He wouldn't return to Japan until more than a decade later as he came back as a part of some of the CMLL Japan tours.
Already an stablished star, Lizmark moved up in weight class again and became a light heavyweight - the weight class he'd stay at during the remainder of his career. In March of 1988, Lizmark defeated Cien Caras (who was still masked and was going to move up to the heavyweight division) to get the NWA Light Heavyweight Championship, thus becoming the second Mexican to ever get three different NWA titles from three different weight divisions as the first one had already been Gori Guerrero.
From 1988 to 1992, Lizmark lost and regained that title several times (Fabuloso Blondy - Lizmark - Satanico - Pirata Morgan - Blondy - Lizmark - Satanico - Lizmark - Satanico) but he kept being one of the most dominant light heavyweights of all Mexico as he also enjoyed his first couple of WWA World Light Heavyweight Championship reigns (first one in 1988 defeating El Cobarde in Tijuana; and the second one defeating Enrique Vera, in 1990).
The 1st of July of 1991, Lizmark's son made his debut as El Hijo De Lizmark. As a good father proud of his son, and as a passionate lover of lucha libre, teaming with his own son was one of the most emotional moments Lizmark has ever had during his career.
Three months after Antonio Peña left EMLL to create AAA, Lizmark left La Empresa just like most of the top EMLL superstars (albeit a few exception like Lizmark's long time ring partner and real life friend, Atlantis) did. Soon after that he got the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship defeating Universo 2000 in Acapulco (9/18/92). Getting this title one of the promises Peña made to Lizmark if he signed with his new promotion. As expected, Lizmark's son signed with AAA as well.
And of course, Lizmark carried his WWA title with himself to start a new exciting feud with one of the fastest rising rudos at the time, LA Park|La Parka]]. Antonio Peña's way to make superstars out of his new character-like personalities was to have them feud with stablished legends, and it really worked. The Blue Genius lost the WWA title to wrestling's favorite skeleton around October of 1993, regained it, and lost it again almost a year later (6/20/94). Lizmark would later lose the National LH title to the same Parka the 9/9/94 in Rio Bravo. Around that time h had some very good sigles matches not only against Parka, but also against "El Puma" Jerry Estrada.
Lizmark did not really like the approach AAA was taking so around mid-to-late 1995 he returned back to CMLL to successfully reform his team with his old partner Atlantis as he enjoyed CMLL tag team and CMLL Trios (having Mr. Niebla as their third man) title reigns. He also had a short stay in Promo Azteca, but he didn't like the atmosphere and returned to CMLL again.
In January of 1999 he had chest pains that lead to heart problems (he eventually denied the heart attack rumors) that kept him out during a long time, and he was even told that he'd never wrestle again, but he returned in six months, and though he's not as good as he used to be, he's still a quality graceful luchador.
Even though he has been around for a long time and he has been a high flyer all of his career, he still keeps in very good shape and he's still able to use athletic flying moves, which mixed with his great mat skills, still let him have good matches.
Lizmark has got a well-deserved reputation for being an innovator that influenced a lot of today's stars, and he's one of the most respected workers in the locker room not only for his tremendous skill but for his great attitude and his excellent work ethic.
Lizmark passed away Wednesday from a heart attack. He was 66 and passed away in Mexico City. Lizmark’s real name is Juan Baños, which wasn’t revealed until his death as he never lost his mask. Lizmark had previous heart issues, retiring for a time in 1999 due to them before coming back, and was largely done with in-ring competition by 2009. (Lizmark’s name has popped up since then, but it’s almost always just confusion with his son.)
Lizmark was born in Oaxaca, but is most associated with Acapulco and it’s said he’ll be buried in the state of Guerrero. The story of the Lizmark name came from the port in that town: a ship was name “Bismark”, and the first letter was changed (either by confusion or by concern of it already being used, depending on the telling) to Lizmark. Lizmark was billed as one of the cliff divers of Acapulco, who take dangerous jumps into the ocean below. Lizmark started in the local arenas there before coming to Mexico City in the early 80s as a revolutionary high flyer for the time, introducing rope tricks with El Matematico with a graceful style. Lizmark was a multi-time world champion when there were many times fewer world championships in Mexico, winning all three NWA championships including the Light Heavyweight championship four times between 1988 and 1992. That domination might have only ended because Lizmark’s stint with CMLL was as well; he joined AAA shortly after, and his national light heavyweight title match with La Parka was one of the bigger matches on the firstTripleMania. Lizmark returned to CMLL in 1995, where he was a regular for most of his career (outside of a unmemorable return to AAA for a few months.) Lizmark’s family includes Hijo de Lizmark, who wrestled in CMLL and WCW and is occasionally seen on indie shows. There was also a separate Lizmark Jr. who appeared for a very brief time, and it’s unclear if he was actually related to Lizmark (as it came off as a name rights buying circumstance.)
Dr. Karonte told Furia de Titanes today the cliff diving was always just a story; Karonte claims he (when both were still children) helped out a skinny teenage Lizmark when he got in a fight, then later introduced him Arena Coliseo Acapulco trainer Abundio Radilla, who took him on. Many years later, they met by chance again in Arena Coliseo and Dr. Karonte had no idea his old friend was now top star Lizmark until he unmasked backstage.
CMLL and AAA mentioned his passing, which came out late Wednesday’s night. LuchaWorld has a brief look at his career, SuperLuchas has a longer one and the bio over on LuchaWiki [above] is worth a look if you haven’t read it. El Hijo del Santo mentioned Lizmark was one of his idols when he was getting into wrestling. Furia de Titanes has other wrestlers remembrances.
There was a myth that he had died or otherwise stopped wrestling after taking a Styles Clashwrong from Terrible, but he continued on with CMLL for a while after that injury. He left CMLL in early 2007 and spent a couple years doing legends shows before just quietly stopping wrestling. There was no retirement show or grand farewell. There definitely was an impression that Lizmark was staying in wrestling the last few years primarily in hope of getting paid to lose his mask. At one point (2006), there was a plan for something like that – Averno & Mephisto taking Lizmark & Hijo del Lizmark’s masks as a big match – but it never came to pass.
Lizmark started just a few years too early for the first run of matches to be taped. There’s some scattered early ones on YouTube, including this one from 1983. His last CMLL TV match was in 2007 teaming with Mictlan and Satanico against Okumura, Emilio Charles Jr., and Pierroth, but he also appeared a couple years later at a special Luchas 2000 show in the Arena Coliseo.
Lizmark happened to pass away on the same day as Blue Demon did 15 years earlier.
