El Chico Azteka

Height: 5' 8"

Weight: 194 lbs.

Age: 20

Hometown/Nation: Tijuana, Mexico

Theme Music: "Rain" by The Cult

Alignment: Face

Appearance: Since he wears a mask, as is inevitable with nine out of ten Mexican wrestlers, most of the details of his face are covered, except for his sharp chin, his large brown eyes and his flowing mane of black hair. Physically, he is a little leaner than the average wrestler, but well toned and worked, giving him a fluid and graceful style. Across his usually exposed back is an intricately designed tattoo of a fiery eagle, the wings of which stretch across and coressponding with his shoulder blades, battling a writhing snake.

Ring Attire: While the main color scheme of his outfits alternates between gold, sparkling red and equally sparkling green, the design and border colors remain the same. His mask is designed with a sleek modern interpretation of an Aztec-Olmec wall painting of a face, with thick black lines drawing out the details. The top of the mask is open for his long hair and the chin-mouth area is also exposed. El Chico wears baggy pants of a corresponding color to his mask, tucked into his white boots and with a large black waistband.

Description of the Wrestler's Personality, Behavior, and Attitude: El Chico Azteko is the definition of high-energy. He's extremely excitable in and out of the ring, loves to play to the fans, and when in 'the zone', remains in a constant state of hyper-activity, bouncing all over the place. He often runs to ringside, is the first to answer challenges or enter the ring in a six-man, and his attitude is often contagious with onlookers.

Background Information on Wrestler:

Wrestling has always been a long and respected in Mexico as well as it has in Japan. Perhaps that tradition is a little different and at times, a little more bizarre, but the people of Mexico love their wrestling.

Jesus Rivera was no exception, and being raised in Tijuana, right across the border from San Diego and the United States, he was often fond of emmersing himself in the world of wrestling since his earliest memory. Other sports held little significance for him, and even though his friends were mostly rabid soccer fans, he always gravitated towards the art of professional wrestling.

At the age of 16, in a smaller wrestling promotion which has since gone out of business, Rivera found work as a ring attendent in order to earn his lessons in the ring with the various Mexican wrestling stars that passed through the business and made it their home. Being a bit new, he found himself in the middle of the new high-flying Mexican craze and threw himself whole-heartedly into it. He even threw in his own touches, training in gymnastics to give his high-risk repetoire a more fluid, acrobatic style.

Four years later, Riveria was finally ready to enter the world of professional wrestling, but unfortunately, the major Mexican associations had no use for the hyper young high-flyer. He was too untested and the organization he had trained in was too small time to provide him with the sufficient references.

However, over the border in San Diego, a scout working for Jim Gamias looking to fill the talent roster for the new NWC Japan Project spotted the youngster competing temporarily in a GSW-sponsored high-school-gym run wrestling federation, Desert Sun Wrestling. The scout brought Jesus Riveria to the camp of Gamias, where his repetoire has began to solidify and the more reputable wrestling organization has finally bestowed upon him the true coming-of-age mark for a Mexican wrestler - a mask and an alter ego.

Now, he was El Chico Azteka.

Titles Held: None

Three Strengths/Talents of the wrestler:

1) Fan Favorite - Given the high amount of heel wrestlers competing in the NWC Japan Project, the fans might feel a bit alienated and even excluded from the action in the ring. Therefore, it's given to reason that they should show a bit of heighted respect for El Chico, even if he is a foreigner, and that support in turn fuels the heart of the spirited youngster.

2) Agility - El Chico Azteka is a noticably smaller athlete, being dwarfed even by some of his Japanese counter-parts, but what he lacks in size and strength, he more than makes up for in his almost flawless game of aerial and top rope manuveurs. Acrobatically trained, El Chico is able to fly with a fluid grace that shows no signs of second guessing or uneasiness. He's at home in the air.

3) Endurance - Being trained in an unreputable backwater wrestling promotion in Mexico has its advantages, even if they are composed mostly of being beat over the head and dropped in many uncomfortably constricted ways. After four years of this, El Chico Azteka is surprisingly apt to deal with being splatted all over the ring for good long time.

Three Weaknesses/Flaws of the wrestler:

1) Over-Excitable - Sometimes, El Chico gets a little too excited about jumping around the ring, showing off for the fans, and doing death-defying planchas and corkscrews. Sometimes, he forgets his game, like is normal with young inexperienced athletes like himself. And most of the time, veterans can end a fiery advantage streak when El Chico's concentration drifts away from them.

2) Small - El Chico is pretty small for a wrestler, and while he has to tools to compensate, he can't replace the advantages a bigger wrestler has. It's easy to over-power the small fella when you ground him, and some of the larger men can even stop him in mid-air if they can catch him with certain moves.

3) Foreigner - Yes, the fans respect him. They may even like him. But they'll probably never love him. The language barrier. The gaijin syndrome. There's a thin but sturdy wall between El Chico Azteka and it may be thick enough to keep the youngster from rocketing to the top.

Finishing Maneuver:

Swan Dive Senton - El Chico Azteka heads up top, usually in one deft leap, after downing his opponent. He leaps from the turnbuckle onto the ring rope for a little extra spring and shoots straight into the air with an impressive vertical. At the zenith of the jump, he twists mid-air so that he actually appears to be coming down face first, but half-way down, he snaps his head back, coming down in a senton position with his legs still straight up. This brings almost the total weight of El Chico onto the opponent, and with a little tweaking, could be the most devastating splash variant in the Japan Project. Extremely dangerous, but extremely powerful.

Setup Maneuver:

??? - There's no name for the move set that El Chico Azteka usually uses in conjunction with his finisher. Generally, it consists of El Chico swinging around the side of his opponent, deliver a kick to the back and then, in rapid succession, spinning on his heel and delivering another spinning back kick into the stomach. While the opponent is doubled over, El Chico hits the ropes, springing backwards off the middle ropes and catching the opponent with a modified DDT.

Signature Maneuvers:

Standing Moonsault Save - A typical standing moonsault, which should be quite normal if being carried out on normal terms, but if the opponent lifts his knees, El Chico simply springs back into a backflip, hops to his feet and comes back with a spinning leg drop.

Triple-Splash - It begins with a prone opponent. El Chico bounces off the ropes and rolls over them with a somersault senton, continuing to roll right on into a standing position. Without a second of pause, he springs off the ropes with an Asai moonsault, which hits hard enough to bounce him back to his feet where another splash comes soon with a standing frog splash. It's all high speed enough to make it one fluid move.

Dizzy-Up - Opponent prone again, El Chico catapults himself up to the middle of the top rope, then falls down with his legs flat, the bounce off the top rope spinning El Chico over and into a splash.