WWE: 5 Things You May Not Know About WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio

While he had some ups and downs during 2011 due to a variety of booking changes that delayed his planned title wins for seven months, Alberto Del Rio is now WWE Champion (for the second time, no less).  This past weekend, WWE taped television in Mexico City for the first time ever as part of a Mexican tour that he was the centerpiece of.

With this being Del Rio's week and the fine readers of Bleacher Report having responded well to my previous "Things You May Not Know About" slideshows about Hell in a Cell matches and Mark Henry, here are five things you may not know about El Campeon de WWE, Alberto Del Rio.

He's One of the Toughest Guys in WWE

Back when he was plain ol' Alberto Rodriguez, Del Rio was an excellent Greco-Roman wrestler.  He made the Mexican national team, and from there, he placed third in the World Junior Championships, medaled the Pan American Games, and won the Central American and Caribbean Games in his weight division.  He was considered an Olympic hopeful for the 2000 Summer games in Sydney, but Mexico didn't send a team due to a lack of funding.

It was after he learned that he wouldn't be able to go to the Olympics that he broke into pro wrestling as Dos Caras Jr.  That wasn't the end of him in legitimate competition, though.

While working as a pro wrestler for AAA in Mexico, he began training for mixed martial arts competitions with former UFC star Marco Ruas.  In Summer 2001, he got an opportunity to fight for the new DEEP promotion in Japan and was booked to fight Kengo Watanabe (also known simply as "KENGO") on their second card.

Wearing the modified wrestling mask seen above and still billed as Dos Caras Jr., he made a pretty impressive debut, winning by TKO just 50 seconds into the first round by breaking Watanabe's arm with a belly to belly suplex.  Watanabe won the longer, more competitive rematch the following Spring by getting Dos to submit to a rear naked choke almost four minutes into the second round.

Caras continued to fight on and off for the next several years, amassing a winning record of 9-5 (all finishes with two knockouts and seven submissions).  His last three fights—a win on Dec. 26, 2009, another win on Feb. 13, 2010, and a loss exactly two weeks later—took place in quick succession several months after he had signed with WWE and reported to its developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling.

While he has a winning record, his most famous fight was his loss to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic at Pride's first Bushido event on October 5, 2003.  On the biggest stage he ever competed on, he was knocked out in 46 seconds by Cro Cop's signature left high kick to the head, adding to his opponent's reputation as "The Pro Wrestler Hunter" by being the fifth pro wrestler to lose to him.

It may not be a coincidence that his Achilles’ heel in WWE has been CM Punk's high kick.

He Was the Inspiration for Some of the Weirdest MMA Fights Ever

With Dos Caras Jr./Alberto Del Rio's fights being popular, the DEEP promoters went all in with a series of Mexican luchadores vs Japanese mixed martial artists fights over the course of multiple cards.  Really.

In addition to some one-off fights, the undercard of the Dos Caras Jr. vs Kengo Watanabe rematch featured multiple fights with luchadores.  A year later, DEEP ran a luchadores vs Pancrase (another MMA promotion they had close ties to) best of five series with another Dos Caras Jr. fight as the main event.  Again, really.

Some of the fights are pretty there, most notably:

- On the first card after Del Rio defeated Kengo Watanabe, Hall of Fame-level luchador El Canek was 48 years old when he was booked to fight 0-3 fighter and sometimes pro wrestler Osamu Tachihikari, who was 11 years younger.  Even with the age difference, lack of experience, and handicap of a mask, Canek handily won by TKO with punches on the ground.

- Legendary masked Lucha Libre maestro (essentially an elder statesman technician) Solar I fought Minoru Suzuki (a pro wrestler who became a fighter in Pancrase before becoming a pro wrestler again) in an infamous disaster of a fight that ended with Solar being disqualified for using multiple low blows.

- Del Rio losing to Hiroyuki Ito by disqualification when he repeatedly held onto the ropes to avoid being taken down (Unfortunately, I can't find video of this one online).

- "Super Porky" Brazo de Plata (a legendary luchador from a big wrestling family who's equally adept at straight wrestling and comedy but has struggled with his weight over the years) vs Takumi Yano.  Porky appeared to have trained hard for the fight, losing a lot of weight and giving a surprisingly good performance, but he lost by submission to a heel hook in the second round.  Unfortunately, only clips are available on YouTube, but a snippet of Porky's dancing ring entrance in his old mask is included.

Only in Japan...

He Was Better Suited to WWE Than Any Other Star Luchador They Could Scout

It was inevitable that WWE would want Dos Caras Jr. when they started looking for new Mexican talent.  Some of it is obvious to WWE fans who see him now as Alberto Del Rio; He's tall, he has a good physique, and he speaks fluent English.  You may not be aware of some other reasons why he's a better fit than most wrestlers in Mexico.

For starters, as you probably know since it's been in the news this week, his uncle is Mil Mascaras, who was a huge international star.  Mascaras was a popular special attraction in the company when it was the WWWF in the '70s, to the point that he's credited with being the catalyst for masked wrestlers being allowed to work at Madison Square Garden.

In addition, he wasn't much of a traditional lucha libre style wrestler in Mexico.  That's not saying he was a bad in-ring wrestler.  He just worked more of an American and Japanese influenced style with lots of high impact suplexes.

When you put it all together, he was exactly what WWE would be looking for.

His Gimmick Is (Sort Of) a Rib on Him

After Alberto Del Rio started to spend some time in Florida Championship Wrestling, the older trainers who knew his uncle started to notice that "he had a lot of Mil Mascaras in him."  They didn't mean it as a compliment.

Most wrestlers didn't really like Mil Mascaras.  He made a habit out of belittling other wrestlers by bragging about his wealth, how well-read he was, his knowledge of history, and so on.  He could also be uncooperative in the ring at times.

Even fans haven't been immune to Mil's attitude.  If a fan asks him to sign (what he thinks is) unauthorized merchandise, he will refuse to sign the item and sometimes even destroys it.

The stuck-up, belittling aspects of his real-life persona are apparently what were passed down to his nephew Alberto.  In turn, an exaggerated version of Alberto was turned into the Alberto Del Rio character.

Whatever the intentions were, many of the best wrestling gimmicks are just exaggerated versions of how the wrestler is in real life, so it all worked out.

The California State Athletic Commission Thought He (*Gasp*) Took a Dive

In 2007, when Alberto Del Rio was still Dos Caras Jr., he was scheduled to fight former NFL star Johnnie Morton on the K-1 Dynamite USA MMA card.  The event, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, also featured Brock Lesnar's MMA debut.

A few obstacles got in Del Rio's way when he tried to get licensed.  Since it's not Japan or Mexico and there's actual oversight, obviously he couldn't wear the mask.

The next issue that came up was a little weirder. Some members of the California State Athletic Commission's (CSAC) regime at the time felt that his loss to Mirko Cro Cop looked too fake.  Thus, they were worried that this professional wrestler fella might have taken a dive in a real sporting contest.

While plenty of fights had been worked in Pride at different points, their concerns were still woefully misguided.  It was a glancing blow, but it definitely landed hard. The CSAC members' concerns spoke more to them being badly informed than anything else.

This was not new territory for the CSAC.  Several months earlier, Brian Ebersole and Shannon Ritch were suspended for working their fight when they did nothing of the sort.  Ebersole, dominating the fight, decided to "carry" Ritch to a longer fight and do some showy moves to keep things entertaining.

At any rate, the bit of trivia that would be Alberto Del Rio and Brock Lesnar appearing on the same MMA card never happened, as Del Rio was injured and had to be replaced.  His replacement, Bernard Ackah, won by knockout in 38 seconds and then Morton tested positive for lots and lots of steroids, so he was suspended and never fought again.