Mr. Águila debuted on January 3, 1994. In 1997, at the age of 19, he was signed by the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) and was added to their Light Heavyweight division. He wrestled under a mask as Águila, and even took on Taka Michinoku for the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XIV. He did not defeat Michinoku for the championship, but put on an impressive showing nonetheless.
Eventually, he returned mask-less as Papi Chulo, and made an appearance in ECW (while still contracted to WWE) at Cyberslam 1999 against Taka Michinoku. He once again failed to defeat Taka Michinoku, but was an impressive showing nonetheless. It must have impressed WWF management, because he was repackaged as Essa Rios and won the WWF World Light Heavyweight Championship in his "debut" match against Gillberg on February 8, 2000. He lost the championship to Dean Malenko on March 13, 2000 and feuded with the Hardy Boys (over Lita) and Chyna before his release in 2001, which was rumored to be over Águila's refusal to learn how to speak English. At Backslash 2000 Aguila went for the European Champion, but fail and lost the match to Eddie Guerrero.
After his release from WWE, Mr. Águila began accepting bookings for Japan and would end up competiting in several matches for TNA from January-July 2004, as part of the Team Mexico faction in the World X-Division Cup.
He is currently competing in Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).
