Dragon Rojo's liked physical activity growing up, especially football, and his father was a teacher. This inspired him to become a teacher, studying at Escuela de Licenciatura en Educación Física (ELEF) and earning the title Licenciado en Educación Física. While at school, Dragon Rojo worked out Gym Ranger, where many future stars of lucha libre also trained.
Lucha libre changed Dragon Rojo's life. Maestro Dandy Garcia invited Dragon to train in shoot wrestling, and Dragon Rojo found he had a knack for it. He continued onto to learn more about lucha libre, training under Garcia, starting in 2000 at the age of 20. Dragon Rojo trained one hour a day in the ring and one hour of a day out of the ring Monday to Friday, and also dieted carefully. Rojo was older than a lot of his fellow trainees and also not from a lucha libre family. In addition to Dandy Garcia, Dragon Rojo also trained under Loco Diaz. Both were strict, not allowing students to debut until they were ready.
Dragon Rojo debuted as Zaracatan Jr., a tecnico, on June 28, 2001. The name came from one of his maestros. Zaracatan Jr. won the "Novato de del Ano" award, and started to work regularly on Thursday, Saturday and Sundays in local arenas.
One day, Zaracatan suffered an injury which kept him out of action for two years. After recovering and spending time with his family, he decided he would return as rudo Diamante Negro. He was more comfortable expressing himself on the rudo side...
