The 75-year-old referee, the martinete, and the safety gap in performance wrestling

In the short video that Mexican media released after that night, one detail made me stop and rewind several times. It was not the blow. It was the walk of a seventy-five-year-old man entering the middle of the ring, arms spread, torso slightly bent, like a man who had done this thousands of times. His name was Gerardo Germán Pineda, but the audience in Hidalgo knew him by the affectionate nickname "El Búho" — The Owl. At seventy-five, he still stood in the center of the ring as an indispensable part of the ritual. A few seconds later, that body fell. And it did not get up again. I have watched many matches in my life, but every time I see a person walk into a place of danger with no one to catch them, I remember a line I have long told myself: the first dive is never the fastest, but it teaches you how to keep your balance. For El Búho, no one taught him how to keep his balance for the final fall. No one stood beside him to catch him. No one prepared for the moment when an entire arena would have to hold its breath. That night in Mineral de la Reforma, in the state of Hidalgo, a professional wrestling show became a legal case, a wave of outrage, and an unanswered question: what actually happened in that ring, and who is responsible for the death of a man who had given his old age to a performance art that most of the world still wrongly calls a combat sport? A NIGHT OF WRESTLING IN MINERAL DE LA REFORMA To understand this story, you have to start with the setting. The incident took place at the Sports and Culture Center "11 de Julio," in Mineral de la Reforma, a town next to Pachuca, the capital of Hidalgo. The organizer was El Patrón Espectáculos, a regional promoter that stages small-scale independent wrestling shows. This is the world of independent lucha libre, far from the lights of giants like AAA or CMLL. The difference between these tiers matters more than it appears. At the top, AAA and CMLL operate like regulated entertainment businesses: clear contracts, insurance, on-site medical teams, health screening for performers, and banned-move lists that are relatively enforced. Down at the regional promoter level, oversight becomes loose and variable. And at the very bottom — where independent shows are staged in local gymnasiums — the systems of licensing, insurance, and medical care often exist only on paper, if at all. The show at "11 de Julio" belonged to that bottom tier. That setting determines most of what followed, because in an event without a license, without insurance, and without an on-site medical team, the smallest mistake can become a tragedy with no safety net to catch it. In the ring that night was El Hijo de Fishman, a wrestler carrying the lineage of the legendary Fishman. To lucha libre fans, the name "Fishman" is not just a nickname. It is heritage, blood, responsibility. The son entered the ring carrying both the expectations and the burden of his father. And in the middle of the ring, controlling the rhythm of the night, was El Búho — a veteran referee who, by the community's own account, had become part of the memory of an entire region. The incident occurred on October 7. The outcome: El Búho died. Afterward, El Hijo de Fishman was arrested on a charge of negligent homicide. The "11 de Julio" venue was temporarily closed for lacking a license. A promotion quietly announced it had ended its relationship with the wrestler. And a wave of outrage spread across Mexican social media. But amid all these facts, there is a large information gap so wide that any rushed conclusion becomes dangerous. The central question of the case — exactly which blow killed a seventy-five-year-old man — remains unanswered. THE NAME OF A MOVE This is the crux, and also where public opinion is most likely to go astray. The first reports said El Hijo de Fishman had used a banned move called the "martinete." In lucha libre, the martinete is a move that drives an opponent down head-first, loading weight onto the neck and the crown of the head. It is the kind of move that appears on many organizations' banned lists, because the risk of cervical-spine injury is extremely high. Attached to this accusation was a detail that inflamed opinion: according to the early reports, the wrestler used the move out of frustration after being penalized points during the match. That story fit a familiar template: a hot-headed young star, an act of retaliation, an innocent victim. It spread fast, and it shaped how the public saw the case from the very first hours. But then Mexican media published video from the scene. And what the video showed was different. According to most descriptions, the move performed was only a "contralona" — a common takedown, a maneuver any wrestler at any level performs hundreds of times in a career without anyone thinking it could kill. The distance between those two names is the entire case. The martinete is a banned move, offensive in nature, intended to cause harm. The contralona is a cooperative move, familiar, part of the basic grammar of performance. One pushes the case toward crime. The other pushes it toward accident. Even the original article had to acknowledge that the name of the move and its causal link to the death remain disputed. This is a truth the public often skips over in its outrage: we are not even certain what happened, let alone who did wrong. I have followed many cases where a small technical detail was inflated into a charge, and I have learned that the name of a maneuver should never be treated as a verdict. In a case with a death, the first thing to do is wait for forensic data, not for a hashtag. THE MECHANICS OF A CHOREOGRAPHED MOVE Here we must state clearly something that many outside the industry misunderstand: lucha libre is not a genuine combat sport. It is a choreographed performance art, where outcomes are predetermined, where moves are cooperative between two people, and where death, betrayal, and victory are all part of a script. This changes how the case must be read. In a real fight, people fight to win. In a choreographed match, two people cooperate to create the illusion of fighting. A beautiful move is not one that inflicts damage, but one that looks like it inflicts damage while actually protecting the recipient. A good performer makes the audience believe in pain without actually causing pain. So in a choreographed match, the dangerous conduct is not "hitting hard." The dangerous conduct is breaking the cooperation. In the trade, this is called working "stiff" — performing a move with real force instead of faked force. A performer who leaves the script out of anger, out of lost composure, or to punish an opponent is turning a show into a real fight. And that is precisely the legal boundary between accident and negligence. This is why the "penalized points" detail carries the greatest analytical weight in the whole case. If the motive of frustration is real, the question is no longer "which move," but "did the performer stay inside the script." A good cooperator performs a contralona safely. Someone who loses control performs the same move with the wrong force and timing — and the result can be fatal. That is why I say the mechanics of a move matter more than its name. The same maneuver, performed with moderate force, at the right rhythm, on a prepared person, is part of the art. Performed with excessive force, at the wrong rhythm, on an unprotected person, it is conduct that can constitute a crime. But here there is another variable that the public seems to underestimate more than all the rest: the recipient of the move. THE REFEREE AND THE BORDER OF AGE In performance wrestling, the referee does not just watch. In many shows, the referee is a secondary performer who takes part in falls, collisions, and scuffles as part of the story. They are called "bumping" referees — people willing to take a fall as part of the show. That means a seventy-five-year-old referee is in a position of danger disproportionate to his official role. In sports medicine, the combination of advanced age and an impact loaded onto the head and neck is close to a categorical contraindication. Reduced bone density, reduced cervical flexibility, reduced recovery capacity — all of it turns a fall a young person could stand up from into a fall that can kill an old one. This is the most important point, and also the least disputed one. Whether the move was a martinete or a contralona, whether the performer acted intentionally or not, putting a seventy-five-year-old into a head-first fall is a safety decision that is hard to justify. Who arranged it? Who agreed to let it happen? Who stood by without intervening? I have talked with many people in the trade and always heard the same logic: "he could still do it." But "could still do it" is not a medical standard. A person can walk, can talk, can stand in the right spot — that does not mean their body can absorb a force loaded onto the top of the head. In this case, the body answered for all the justifications. Here too there is another information gap. We know nothing about El Búho's physical condition before that night, about his injury history, about whether he was screened before stepping into the ring. And we know nothing about the training level, condition, or safety record of El Hijo de Fishman. These are real gaps, and any conclusion that fills them with speculation is an injustice. What we know for certain is: a seventy-five-year-old man took a head-loaded fall, and he died. The rest is unanswered. LICENSING, INSURANCE, AND THE GOVERNANCE GAP There is one detail in this case that I consider more important than the name of the move, because it does not depend on any interpretation. The "11 de Julio" venue was temporarily closed for lacking a license. Local press also mentioned prior obstacles in inspecting the facility. This is a concrete, verifiable fact that cannot be turned into a narrative. A venue hosting performers who take physical impacts was operating without a valid license. That means the formal safety checks — the ones that should happen before a person steps into the ring — were not fully carried out. And if there is no license, there is almost certainly no insurance. In small independent shows, liability insurance is often absent. That explains why the story ended in a private compensation settlement rather than an insurance claim. When no institution steps up to bear responsibility, people have to settle among themselves. The power structure of lucha libre produces this gap systematically. At the top, the giants maintain standards. At the bottom, regional shows operate with very little oversight. Between the two is a gray zone where responsibility is dispersed: the promoter blames the venue, the venue blames the wrestler, the wrestler blames the accident, and no one is responsible for the system. Notably, the role of the organizing company El Patrón Espectáculos received less scrutiny than the role of the wrestler. The original article noted that the organizers' responsibility was questioned, but it did not develop it further. That is an imbalance. In a choreographed show, the people who decide who enters the ring, who takes which move, who stands where — are the organizers. The moral duty, and possibly the legal duty, lies there more than with a single performer. SETTLEMENT, RESTORATIVE JUSTICE, AND THE LOOSE ENDING After the incident, El Hijo de Fishman was arrested on a charge of negligent homicide. But he was not brought to trial the way many expected. Instead, the case was resolved through a mechanism called "restorative justice," set out in Article 186 of Mexico's National Criminal Procedure Code. This mechanism allows the victim and the accused to reach a compensation agreement approved by a prosecutor or judge. Once the agreement is fully performed, the criminal process terminates. In other words, a case with a death can be closed by a private agreement. According to journalist Antonio Nieto, the compensation was 585,525 Mexican pesos, roughly 32,000 US dollars. But this is not the only figure put forward. ADN Noticias published a different amount, and the terms of the agreement were not fully disclosed. That means even the central financial detail of the case is disputed. If the 32,000-dollar figure is accurate, it is fairly modest for a death. In a system where independent events carry almost no insurance, such a payment has the character of a restorative settlement rather than a damages judgment. It reflects the pragmatism of a family wanting quick certainty rather than a lengthy legal process. And this is the point the original article stresses correctly: El Hijo de Fishman's release was a procedural outcome, not an exoneration. He was released because the compensation agreement was approved, not because any public conclusion confirmed that his blow was innocent. The distinction matters, because it means the question of true responsibility was never answered — only paused. The agreement is also conditional. If the compensation obligation is not fully performed, the investigation or proceedings can resume. The case is dormant, not closed. And one governance gap — the unlicensed venue — survives any criminal settlement, because no payout can fix a system that lacks standards. THE SMILE, THE MASK, AND THE OUTRAGE What actually fueled the wave of outrage was not the question of the move's name. It was a photograph. After El Búho's death, the image of El Hijo de Fishman appearing with a smile — amid mourning, at the moment of arrest — became the focal point of anger. To the public, a man connected to an old man's death who then smiles has convicted himself. That smile was read as contempt, as callousness, as proof of guilt. In lucha libre culture, there is another layer that made the case heavier. The mask is a sacred part of identity. Being unmasked in public is a severe humiliation, an irreversible exposure. The fact that the arrest photo published El Hijo de Fishman's unmasked face carried an added humiliation, and it amplified the scandal far beyond what the legal facts could justify. But here we must clearly separate demeanor from culpability. A smile does not constitute criminal intent. In the context of arrest, shock, being surrounded by cameras and hostility, a smile can be a defensive reaction, an awkwardness, a psychological defense mechanism. I do not know what was happening in that man's head in that moment, and I suspect no one does. But it is certain that the smile shaped how the public saw the case more strongly than any forensic fact. This is why voices within the industry split. El Hijo del Santo — one of the biggest names in lucha libre — called it an accident and warned the public not to rush to blame. Latin Lover defended El Hijo de Fishman while admitting that he himself had pushed and slapped referees for drama. That is an important admission, because it shows that a referee being drawn into physical moves is not rare — it is part of a tradition, a tradition that went too far that night. THE CONTRARIAN ANGLE Here I want to offer a view that runs against the mainstream. The central hypothesis of public opinion — that El Hijo de Fishman used a banned move to retaliate for being penalized — may be a mischaracterization. If the video really shows only an ordinary contralona, then the "banned move" story that fueled the initial outrage is likely inaccurate or overstated. The public may have convicted a man based on a name the video does not confirm. But that does not mean no one is responsible. It only means responsibility lies somewhere other than where the public is looking. The most defensible safety criticism in this case is not about the move's name. It is about the participant-selection decision. A seventy-five-year-old referee was put into a head-loaded fall. That is a decision defensible by no argument other than habit and familiarity. And in an environment where habit replaces standards, such decisions will keep being made. The second point, and the one I want to stress: a private settlement does not fix a system. The 32,000-dollar payout, even if fully paid, does not create a license for the venue. It does not create insurance for independent performers. It does not create a screening process for referees in their seventies. It resolves one case, and leaves intact the structure that produced it. That is the paradox of restorative justice in a high-risk entertainment industry. It brings closure to a family, but it can reduce the incentive to invest in preventive safety. If the price of a death can be settled by a private agreement, bottom-tier promoters have little reason to spend on licensing, insurance, and on-site medical care. WHAT REMAINS AFTER THE APPLAUSE I once wrote that 2026 taught me that legends do not die, they only wait for a stage big enough. During the months when competitions stopped, I found a new stage for myself, and I learned that memory can be reborn. But in Mineral de la Reforma, a stage took a human being. And that reminds me that not every stage deserves the people who step onto it. Lucha libre is one of the most beautiful forms of storytelling humans have created. It turns the body into language, the mask into identity, betrayal into art. But that beauty is sustainable only when the people who perform it are protected. In this case, that protection was absent at every level: no license, no insurance, no medical team, no screening process, no age limit. El Búho gave his old age to an art he loved. He entered the ring as part of the ritual, and he died because the ritual had no one to protect it. When the stands fall silent, we finally hear our own applause clearly. And in the silence after the death of a seventy-five-year-old man, what I hear is not applause. It is a question: how many more deaths will it take before a performance art is treated as an industry with responsibility?