AAA's La Parka passes away at 55 years old

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Jan 11, 2020 7:43 pm


Jesus Huerta Escoboza, who was the most recent La Parka, passed away tonight from complications of a near fatal ring accident in October. He was believed to be 55 years old.

Huerta was the second La Parka. The original, Adolfo Tapia, a Hall of Famer, used the name in the 90s in AAA and later WCW, and is now L.A. Park.

On a show for the Kaoz promotion on October 21, 2019, in Monterrey, Park did a tope aiming for Rush. He missed and his head hit the floor and the guard rail. He was paralyzed and rushed to the hospital. He underwent surgery the next morning which was described as lifesaving. He had never recovered from the injuries.

Huerta began wrestling in 1987, and joined AAA in 1995 using the name Karis La Momia. Karis was a gimmick Antonio Pena used during his own active career. He was pushed as a major star in AAA until being switched to La Parka Jr., in 1996. This was because Tapia was working so much for WCW, and La Parka was one of Pena's most successful creations and the dancing skeleton coming out to "Thriller" was a key part of the AAA presentation..

After a falling out between Tapia and Pena, Huerta became known as La Parka, or sometimes La Parka II. The second Parka was among the most popular wrestlers in Mexico of the past two decades, although when Tapia came back at one point as a rudo and they did a feud, the crowd did side with Tapia as the original.

For the past decade, he had been simply known as La Parka.

He had won the Rey de Reyes tournament in AAA five times as well as the Copa Antonio Pena in 2013. He also headlined the 2004 TripleMania in winning a mask vs. mask match over Cibernetico before almost 19,000 fans at El Toreo in Naucalpan. He headlined the 2006 TripleMania beating Muerte Cibernetica in a mask vs. mask match which also sold out El Toreo.

He ended up headlining six different TripleMania shows between 2003 and 2010, including a match with Park where the crowd turned on him somewhat. From that point forward, he was moved down from top star position due to age and injuries, but remained a featured attraction on the shows. He was still one of the company's signature stars at the time of the accident.