El Signo

Antonio Sánchez Rendón (born September 4, 1954 — June 6, 2024) was a Mexican professional wrestler, best known under the ring name El Signo (Spanish for "The Symbol"). Rendón was part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte ("The Missionaries of Death") with Negro Navarro and El Texano a team that is credited with popularizing the Trios match in Mexico to the point that it became one of the most common match in various professional wrestling promotions. Sánchez made his professional wrestling debut in 1971 and officially retired in 2010, after 38 years of active competition. At least one of Sánchez's children is also a professional wrestler, working under the name Hijo del Signo ("Son of the Sign", born 1985) since 2008.

Personal life Most wrestlers in Mexico try to maintain a separation between their professional career and their personal life, which is also true of Antonio Sánchez Rendón, confirming only the most basic details of his life such as birth age and location etc. He was born on September 4, 1954, in Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca, Mexico, and trained for his professional wrestling career under Billy Robinson, Chamaco Azteca and El Carnicero. Sánchez has at least one child, a son born in 1985 who now wrestled as the masked character Hijo del Signo, but since he is an enmascarado his birth name is not reported on out of respect of lucha libre (the professional wrestling style originary from Mexico) traditions. It is not documented if he has other children or if he was still married to the mother of Hijo del Signo.

Professional wrestling career Sánchez made his professional wrestling debut on September 16, 1971, a few weeks after turning 17 years old. He began wrestling as the enmascarado character "El Signo" ("The Sign"), wearing a mask (most often black) with an upside down question mark on the front of it. In 1974 El Signo lost a Luchas de Apuestas, or bet match to Gatúbedo and as a result was forced to unmask and reveal his birth name as per Lucha Libre traditions.

In 1981 the Los Misioneros de la Muerte name became a household name after a match in El Toreo de Quatro Caminos, UWA's main venue. During the main event Los Misioneros faced off against then 64-year-old El Santo, who was teaming up with Huracán Ramírez and Rayo de Jalisco. During the match El Santo collapsed in the middle of the ring, suffering a heart attack after a hard blow to the chest. His life was only saved due to the actions of Ramírez who administered CPR at ringside. After the match the Lucha Libre magazine, prompted by Francisco Flores, played off the real life tragedy by promoting Los Misioneros as the team that nearly killed the biggest name in Lucha Libre ever. Following Santo's retirement Los Misioneros feuded with the top faces (wrestlers portraying "good guy" characters) such as Los Tres Caballero (Aníbal, El Solitario and Villano III) both in trios and in individual competition. During the storyline El Solitario turned on his two partners, when he attacked El Signo with a bottle and costing Los Tres Caballeros an important match. The attack made the smaller Los Misioneros more sympathetic to the crowd, who began to support them more and more despite Los Misioneros being booked on the shows as heel characters ("bad guys"). On June 10, 1983, El Signo won the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship from El Solitario as part of their long running storyline, marking the third division El Signo had won the UWA title in.

Independent Circuit After the closure of the UWA in 1995 Negro Navarro and El Signo split up, going their separate ways on the Independent circuit, only teaming together for special occasions. Signo joined AAA and was given a new ring character, a masked heel character called "Piromaniaco" (Pyromaniac) but he only made a few appearances under that name before reverting to his unmasked El Signo identity. In 1996 El Signo began working for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL; previously known as EMLL) during a time where CMLL were given the rights to the Mexican National Trios Championship by the Mexican boxing and wrestling commission. El Signo teamed up with Blue Panther and Fuerza Guerrera, two wrestlers with a similar background and age to compete in the tournament for the titles. On July 6, 1996, the team defeated El Brazo, Brazo de Plata and Super Electra in the tournament finals to win the championship. El Signo stopped working full-time for CMLL in 1999 or 2000, despite still being part of the Mexican National Trios Championship team, leaving the title to be mainly inactive and not highly promoted. El Signo made a special appearance for CMLL on March 3, 2001, on their Juicio Final ("Final Justice") show, losing the Mexican National Trios Championship to Mr. Niebla, Olímpico and Safari. In 2003 El Signo worked a number of matches for AAA, including a match where the original Los Misioneros were reunited for AAA's 2003 Guerra de Titanes show where they defeated El Brazo, Sangre Chicana and Pirata Morgan. In the following years El Signo primarily worked on the Mexican independent circuit, wrestling other wrestlers who were considered "Old School", wrestlers who made their debut in the mid-1980s or before. He had a number of matches against Villano III, including at least two occasions where he lost a Luchas de Apuestas against him. Universal Wrestling Association UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time) UWA World Light Heavyweight Championship (2 times) UWA World Lightweight Championship (1 time) UWA World Trios Championship (6 times) – With Negro Navarro and El Texano (2), Negro Navarro and Black Power II (2), Negro Navarro and Rocky Santana (2) UWA World Welterweight Championship (1 time) WWF Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time) Wrestling Observer Newsletter Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 2019) as part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte

Luchas de Apuestas record

Winner (wager)Loser (wager)LocationEventDateNotesGatúbedo (mask) El Signo (mask) Naucalpan, State of Mexico UWA show El Cobarde II (mask) El Signo (hair) N/A Live event N/A Rambo (hair) El Signo (hair) Naucalpan, State of Mexico UWA Live event N/A Los Misioneros de la Muerte (hair)(El Signo, El Texano and Negro Navarro) Takano, Saito and Kobayashi (hair) Mexico City UWA show El Solitario (mask) El Signo (hair) Tijuana, Baja California UWA show Los Misioneros de la Muerte (hair) (El Signo, El Texano and Negro Navarro) El Dandy, Talismán and Jerry Estrada (hair) Mexico City UWA show Ringo Mendoza, Américo Rocca and Tony Salazar (hair) Los Misioneros de la Muerte (hair)(El Signo, El Texano and Negro Navarro) Mexico City EMLL 53rd Anniversary Show El Signo (hair) Kato Kung Lee (hair) Naucalpan, State of Mexico UWA 14th Anniversary Show Enrique Vera (hair) El Signo (hair) Naucalpan, State of Mexico Live event

Footnotes