Villano V

Profile

Villano V (Villano Quinto)

Name Villano V (Villano Quinto) Real name Raymundo Diaz Mendoza Nicknames La Pantera Rosa (The Pink Panther); El Niño Barbaro (The Barbarian Kid, as Rokambole) El Chacal de la rudeza Name history Rokambole (75/03/15), Villano V (85/09 - ), Ray Mendoza Jr. (3/09 - ) Family Ray Mendoza (father), Los Villanos (brothers), Difunto I (half-brother), La Infernal (sister-in-law), Rokambole Jr. & Villano V Jr. (sons), El Hijo de Villano III & Villano III Jr. (nephews); see Los Villanos Maestro(s) Ray Mendoza, Villano I, El Costeño Nava, Alejandro de Alba Birth date, location March 22, 1962 - Mexico City Obituary date August 29, 2024 (aged 62) Debut, location March 15, 1977 - Arena Raff - Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico State Lost mask to March 20, 2009 - Arena México, Mexico City (vs Ultimo Guerrero) Height 5'9"/177 cms Weight 220 lbs/100 kg Signature moves La Tapatia, step over armbar, Toque De Espalda Universal Titles: Naucalpan Tag Team Titles (w/ Kuroneko - as Rokambole), Naucalpan Welterweight Title (as Rokambole), Toluca Welterweight Title, Nezahualcoyotl Lightweight Title, Mexico State Lightweight Title, UWA World Trios Titles (6, w/ Villanos I & Villano IV five times, w/ Scorpio Jr. & Shu El Guerrero), UWA World Light Heavyweight Title (2), National Trios Titles (w/ Villano III & Dos Caras), National Atomicos Titles (w/ Pierroth Jr. & Villanos III & IV), AAA Americas Trios Titles (w/ Villanos III & IV), UWA World Tag Team Titles (w/ Villano IV), WWA World Tag Team Titles (w/ Villano IV), IWRG Trios Titles (w/ Villanos III & IV), Arena Aztahuacan Tag Team Titles (w/ Villano IV), WWA World Trios Championship (w/Villano IV, Villano III)

Wrestling Observer Hall Of Fame Member

Biography

Villano V is the last of the five Villano brothers. Despite the number, Villano V is not the youngest of the Villanos brothers. Ray Mendoza mandated that his sons finish studying for a career before they started wrestling. Villano IV, the youngest member of the group, completed his studies first, and so earned his number first.

He spent the beginning of his career as Rokambole, a name which his other brothers had also used. The name seems to refer to a fictional French character named Rocambole that was an adventurer. As Rokambole, he won the hairs and masks of multiple wrestlers and arguably had the best pre-Villano career of his family. He often competed in the UWA, which his father Ray Mendoza had a lot of influence in. He was typically a midcard wrestler and after taking on the Villano name, frequently teamed with his brothers Villano I and Villano IV, as Villano III was often in singles action.

In 1985, he had one of the major highlights of his career was when he took part in the famous Los Villanos vs Los Brazos Triple Mask vs Mask match, where the Villanos won. He spent the late 80's trading the UWA World Trios Championship with Los Brazos and Los Missioneros De La Muerte, where he became a five-time UWA World Trios champion.

After UWA's closure in the 1990's, he went to AAA along with his brothers. In 1996, he became one-fourth of the inaugural AAA Mexican National Atomicos Champions and one-third of the inaugural AAA Americas Trios Champions. He and his brothers later went to WCW, where they took on a lower card role putting over other wrestlers before heading to CMLL for Villano III's program vs Atlantis.

Villano V had a career resurgence in the late 2000's. He surprisingly took the mask of Blue Panther on September 19th, 2008 in a mask vs mask match, but then lost his mask in another mask vs mask match against Ultimo Guerrero on March 3rd, 2009. This left Villano IV as the last active masked Villano.

After Villano III's passing, he took upon more of a figurehead role in in the Villano wrestling dynasty. He also began training his sons Villano V Jr. and Rokambole Jr. and eventually teamed with them alongside Villano IV.

LuchaBlog Obituary:

Villano V (Raymundo Diaz Mendoza, 62) passed away Thursday. He posted videos on Facebook just a few days ago and seemed to be still working in acupuncture recently. Two of his sons wrestle as Villano V Jr. and Rokambole Jr. (a name V used early in his career). Those two and a third non-wrestling son posted on Facebook that there would be no burial, per Villano V’s wishes, but they would hold a mass with his ashes. Record reports Mendoza had a lethal heart attack while at home, and those sons discovered the body too late to do anything. Villano V’s wife Chely passed away earlier in March; many of Mendoza’s close friends noted he never recovered from that loss and took some solace in the idea that they were now reunited. Villano V is the last number in the series, but he’s the second-youngest brother. The brothers were only allowed to take on the Villano name when they had completed their education, and the youngest Villano IV got it done quicker than Villano V. AAA and CMLL posted remembrances.

The final time Villano V (or Ray Mendoza Jr., the name he tended to use after his unmasking) came up in the lucha libre news was last spring. Villano V was living in Monterrey and had been appointed as one of the commissioners there. The Monterrey Commission has been among the strictest in the country in recent years, and AAA came to them unprepared. Their big plan to make mainstream waves was to have YouTube content creator Adrian Marcelo wrestle Chessman on the first TripleMania Monterrey. To AAA’s surprise, the Monterrey Commission required Marcelo to take a competency test before giving him a wrestling license and allowing him to get in the ring. Villano V ran that workout and ran it hard. Marcelo instead decided this wasn’t what he had signed up for and quit midway through the test. I don’t believe Villano V specifically wanted Marcelo to fail the test, but he was going to make sure Marcelo earned that license. He wanted Marcelo to work as hard as he and his brothers had to become wrestlers, as expected of all wrestlers when Mendoza broke in the 70s. Villano V entered wrestling in an era where it was supposed to feel and look natural. He enjoyed that moment of protecting wrestling from the spectacle AAA wanted to present. The Villanos were tough-nosed fighters emphasizing the fight, and he demanded to see the same fight out of anyone else who wanted to call themselves a luchador.

Villano V’s style made him both a great fit at times and a tough one at other times. His biggest visibility to English-speaking fans was his time in WCW between 1997 and 2000, years that paid very well and didn’t help his career beyond that. WCW had little idea to do with most Mexican wrestlers, the Villanos included. Brothers IV and V wrestled well and rarely got much to do beyond that. In Mexico, before and after, the two Villanos were successful on their own and as a team with Villanos I and III at different times. The Villanos I, IV, and V triple mask match victory over Los Brazos is an iconic match of its time, and the feud between those families continues to this day. Both families were key parts of the promotion best known as UWA, and would’ve been champions countless times if that promotion didn’t fall apart in the early 90s. Villano V followed his brothers I and III as a singles champion in the dying dates of the promotion. Brothers IV and V made the fortunate decision to get into AAA in 1995, which meant they were along for the ride when a bunch of AAA's roster departed for both Promo Azteca and, eventually, WCW riches.

Like many ex-WCW luchadors, the Villanos floated around Mexico in the early 2000s without much of a set home. The Villanos spent a couple of years in CMLL from 2000-2002, then returned for a longer run in 2007 as sort of rudo outsiders. Villano V was part of the 74th Aniversario, a cage match where Blue Panther took Hijo del Lizmark’s mask. Villano V and Blue Panther started to wrestle constantly in early 2008. CMLL tried to play it up as a three-decade-long feud leading into the big match, which didn’t ring true. There was shared history; Panther had trained under Villano I at one point, and both had long ties back to the UWA.

Blue Panther/Villano V match felt underwhelming as an Aniversario match, even with them feuding all year. 2008 was also Mistico as hot as ever against Perro Aguayo Jr., also incredibly hot with the Perros del Mal behind him. Both Mistico and Perro got hurt in the weeks leading up the Aniversario, which seemed to scuttle the dream apuesta match. Villano V also suffered a shoulder injury leading into the show, which seemed certain to hurt the quality of the match as well. You can read back my preview from the time; I’m pessimistic about the whole Aniversario that year. I’m also dead wrong.

Villano V/Blue Panther is one of the great apuesta matches of the time. Two men slug it out and fight for their lives. Villano V bled from the back of his head after connecting with a chair on the dive, maybe the last time someone bled in a big CMLL match. That also leads to one of the enduring moments of the night – Villano IV coming out to help his brother change masks to clean off the blood, and Mistico accusing the Villanos of performing a diabolical switch to cheat Blue Panther. (It doesn’t appear they actually switched, but it lives on forever as an urban legend.) Villano V blocked a Blue Panther tirabuzon attempt into a unique cradle and shockingly keeps a hold of Panther for the three count. CMLL re-released matches from this Aniversario show during the pandemic and has now put it behind the paywall; that version looks very nice. I implore you to instead watch the lower res version that WarriorX2000 put up in the weeks following the show (or the versions I’ve snuck up on Daily Motion.) If nothing else, jump to the last moments of the match and watch through the next couple of minutes. The re-released CMLL version includes new commentary and some editing; they try their best, it’s professional, and it’s just impossible to meet that moment. The original commentary, the Televisa commentary, is wildly unprofessional – Leobardo Magadan, Leo Riano, and Dr. Alfonso Morales all start talking over each other, the cameras cut to fans going crazy, and it’s bedlam the production is struggling to capture. It’s an out of control moment, with no one believing what they just saw. Only the most diehard Villano fans believed he had a chance; almost everyone had chalked this up as Villano V coming in from the indies to lose his mask in his last moment in the spotlight against a CMLL stalwart. Blue Panther was already a legend and was surely going to keep his mask until the day it was time for him to step aside and help a young wrestler on the way up. There was no way Blue Panther was losing that match, and then the referee counted to three. It is the biggest surprise in the history of CMLL Aniversario shows.

(aside 1: in retrospect, Mistico versus Perro Aguayo wasn’t happening that year even if both men were healthy. Mistico simply could not lose, it made no sense for Aguayo to lose. He was too hot to lose. He was also quitting CMLL days later. The public didn’t know it, but Aguayo had already decided to quit to turn the Perros del Mal group into a Perros del Mal promotion. It would’ve made no sense for him to take the ultimate loss while trying to get his own thing going. No one had any idea though. CMLL also seems to have had plans years in advance – Blue Panther beat Hijo del Lizmark, Villano V beat Blue Panther, Ultimo Guerrero beat Villano V – so the apuesta match was happening regardless of Mistico/Perro.)

(aside 2: in looking through those blog entries, I re-discovered this Aniversario was intended to be a PPV, then CMLL or Sky pulled it in the last days with no explanation. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I believe we listened to an audio-only internet feed of the main event and talked about it in a chat on this blog, not quite believing our ears about the finish. A sports recap show on Sundays named “Accion” would air clips of AAA and CMLL each week, so that’s where we first saw some of the mask match, and the full version aired the following week. We didn’t really know how good it was until then. That part has changed a lot.)

Villano V was hunted by every wrestler from the Torreon region for the next six months, every one of them wanting to avenge their local icon Blue Panther. Ultimo Guerrero cornered him in early 2009, and got the mask match as part of that year’s Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. That match is also great, though it didn’t have the same emotional punch off the Aniversario show. Villano V couldn’t pull the upset this time, history turned back in favor of the CMLL home team. Villano V renamed himself Ray Mendoza Jr. following the mask loss, and stuck around for about a year and a half more. (As still sort of an outsider rudo, he teamed a lot with Naito, Yujiro, and Taichi as they came through Mexico on excursions.) CMLL really didn’t have much for Villano to do, and he exited in 2010 to team with his brothers again and work a lot of legend’s shows. He helped his sons, originally Kaving and Kortiz, later Villano V Jr. and Rokambole Jr., start in the wrestling business. Villano V threw his retirement show in 2013, a big Ruleta de la Muerte, where he and his brother shaved Cassandro (a bit) and took Hijo del Pirata Morgan’s mask. The retirement show tanked, leaving Villano V in significant debt after the show that was supposed to see him off – so he took a few more dates. A reunion of Villano III, IV, and V to wrestle Psycho Circus for TripleMania XXIII went similarly poorly. PPV viewers were treated with all sorts of production gaffs. People in the building endured the Villanos, especially Villano III, having a terrible night. (Villano IV’s future successes would’ve seemed impossible that day.) Villano V had a handful of more matches, but was essentially retired going into the TripleMania and essentially stayed that way. Villano V was honored this past July and teased fighting the newest version of the Brazos, but it didn’t seem like he was actually returning.

Villano IV, who recently began working as lucha libre commissioner in Mexico City and also runs a candy store, is now the last remaining of the five Villanos brothers. Villano II passed away young, and really I, III and V all never got to enjoy their later years. (The anniversary of Villano III’s death was just a few days ago.) 62 seems old when you’re young, but you figure out it’s not near long enough as you get older.

Luchas de apuestas record

Date	Apuesta	Winner(s)	Loser(s)	Arena and/or Place
??/??/??	hair	Rokambole	Javier Montes	unknown
??/??/??	masks	Rokambole & ?	Cerebro I & Cerebro II	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Torbellino Tapatio	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	El Apostol	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	El Titán	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Guerrero	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Holandés	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Júnior	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Billy Jack	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Ventarrón	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Gatubedo	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Potro Salvaje II	unknown
??/??/??	mask	Rokambole	Barón Rojo II	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Ivanhoe II	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Corsario	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Takamba	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Forastero	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Blacamán	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Balam	unknown
??/??/??/	mask	Rokambole	Solmar	unknown
77/??/??	mask	Rokambole	Coyote (1979)	Mexico City
77/02/16	hair	Rokambole	Centella Nolasco	Arena KO
77/02/12	hair	Rokambole	Perro Sosa	Mexico City
77/03/01	hair	Rokambole	Lucio Risas	Acapulco, Guerrero
77/03/27	mask	Rokambole	Bronco	Toluca, Estado de Mexico
77/10/??	mask	Rokambole	Cuervo Blanco	Deportivo Moctezuma - Mexico State
77/12/17	hair	Rokambole	Perro Sosa	Mexico City
78/05/12	mask	Rokambole	Super Libre	Puebla, Puebla
78/06/13	hair	Rokambole	Comanche	Mexico City
78/08/13	hair	Rokambole	Azcasgary	Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas
78/12/14	hair	Rokambole	Caballero Negro	Jalapa, Veracruz
80'	mask	Rokambole	Socio II	unknown
80/05/¿?	hair	Rokambole	Jose Luis Mendieta	Mexico City
80/06/¿?	hair	Rokambole	Castorcito	Estado de Mexico
81/01/06	mask	Rokambole	El Socio	Arena Coliseo - Acapulco, Guerrero
83/03/20	hair	Rokambole	Huichol Tapatío	Querétaro, Querétaro
83/09/21	hair	Rokambole	Guerrero Negro	Celaya, Guanajuato
88/10/21	masks	Los Villanos I, IV & V	Los Brazos (Oro, Plata, Brazo)	Plaza de Toros Monumental - Monterrey, Nuevo Leon
91/07/19	masks	Los Villanos I, IV & V	Mercenarios Americanos (Tim Patterson, Bill Anderson & Louie Spicolli)	Auditorio de Tijuana - Tijuana, Baja California
08/09/19	mask	Villano V	Blue Panther	Arena Mexico - Mexico City
09/03/20	mask	Último Guerrero	Villano V	Arena México - Mexico City
12/03/04	hair	Villano V	Brazo de Platino	Arena Neza - Mexico state
13/03/16	mask, hair	Villano IV & Villano V	Hijo de Pirata Morgan & Cassandro	Juan de la Barrera - Distrito Federal
2014.11.28	Hairs	Kaving, Ray Mendoza Jr., Kortiz	Tony Rivera, Dr. Killer Jr., Ciclon Black	Ex Conasupo de Los Reyes, Los Reyes La Paz
17/12/03	hair	Ray Mendoza Jr.	Electroshock	Arena Naucalpan - Mexico State

Gallery

as Rokambole

as Rokambole

as Rokambole

winning Electroshock's hair

As Rokambole with Scorpio and Bull Power

1976

Los Villanos
Ray Mendoza
Villanos: I ▪ II ▪ III ▪ IV ▪ V
Villanos Jr.: III Jr. ▪ Hijo III ▪ IV Jr. ▪ V Jr. ▪ Kaving