El Satánico

Daniel López López (October 26, 1949) is a Mexican Luchador, or professional wrestler best known under the ring name Satánico (Spanish for "The Satanic One"). López is currently working as a wrestling trainer for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), the company he's worked for most of his career. As Satánico he's best known for his decade long relationship with a wrestling group called Los Infernales as he's been the core member of various combinations of the group from the middle of the 1980s until 2007.

Professional wrestling career
López made his professional wrestling debut on June 17, 1973 using the name El Satánico Dr. No ("The Satanic Dr. No") named after the James Bond movie villain Dr. No. After a few months the name was shortened to just "El Satánico". He was originally an enmascarado, or masked character, but lost his mask as a result of a Lucha de Apuesta, or "bet match" against El Vengador on January 4, 1974. On October 19, 1979 Satánico won his first wrestling championship when he defeated Cachorro Mendoza to win the Mexican National Middleweight Championship. His first reign lasted 161 days and was an indicator of what the future held for Satánico as it was the first of many titles he would hold. Satánico held the Mexican National Middleweight title again in 1981-1982 and would hold it in 1988/1989 as well. On March 28, 1980 Satánico moved up from the Mexican title to the world title as he defeated Satoru Sayama for the NWA World Middleweight Championship. While his first reign lasted just 30 days he would hold it a further two times between 1982 and 1983 by defeating César Curiel and El Jalisco for the title, before losing it for the third and final time to Lizmark on June 3, 1986. A month after losing the Middleweight title Satánico moved from the Middleweight division to the light heavyweight division when he defeated Ringo Mendoza to win his first NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship, holding it for 87 days before Mendoza regained it.

Los Infernales
In the early 1980s the Trios concept became very popular in Mexico, spearheaded by the trio called Los Misioneros de Muerte (the Missionaries of Death) who worked for rival promotion Universal Wrestling Association (UWA). EMLL decided to create a trio of villains, or Rudos as they're called in Lucha Libre, to capitalize on the popularity of the Trios phenomenon. MS-1 (wrestler), El Satánico and Espectro, Jr. were chosen to form Los Infernales (the Infernals). Due to various injuries Espectro, Jr. was forced to retire from wrestling all together, which led to Pirata Morgan becoming the third Infernales, giving birth to the most successful incarnation of Los Infernales. Satánico split his time between trios matches and wrestling in the middleweight division, defeating Lizmark to start his fourth reign on December 2, 1983. By the middle of 1984 Satánico became involved in a long, draw out heated feud with Gran Cochisse, a feud that saw Sátanico and Cochisse trade the title back and forth. On October 14, 1984 Satánico won the UWA World Middleweight Championship from Super Astro. In March 1985 Los Infernales participated in a tournament to determine the first ever Mexican National Trios Champions; in the finals of the tournament Los Infernales defeated Los Brazos ("the Arms"; El Brazo, Brazo de Oro and Brazo de Plata) to become the first ever Mexican National Trios champions. In October, 1986 Pirata Morgan left the group to form a new group called "Los Bucaneros", in his place Los Infernales recruited Masakre to be their third member. while MS-1 and Masakre worked as a tag team, Satánico focused more and more on singles competition, which meant that Los Infernales made fewer appearances as a trio. During this time period Satánico won his third Mexican National Middleweight title as well as his second and third NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship. During this time Satánico and Pirata Morgan were embroiled in a long feud, pitting the former Infernales members against each other. The feud saw Morgan win the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship from Satánico on October 21, 1989.

In the early 1990s Los Infernales reformed, reuniting MS-1, Satánico and Pirata Morgan once more. The trio participated in the tournament to crown the first ever CMLL World Trios Champions. Los Infernales won the tournament, defeating Los Brazo in the finals to become the first ever CMLL World Trios Champions on November 22, 1991. Former Infernales member Masakre had formed his own group, Los Intocables (the Untouchables) consisting of himself, Pierroth, Jr. and Jaque Mate ("Checkmate"). Los Intocables were immediately paired against Los Infernales to create a Rudos vs. Rudos storyline, playing off both the championship chase and the history between the two groups. On March 22, 1992 Los Intocables won the CMLL World Trios Title, however Los Infernales got the final victory in their feud as they defeated Los Intocables for the championship on September 20, 1992. On April 5, 1992 Satánico defeated long time rival Lizmark to win his fourth and final NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship. His final reign with the title lasted 111 days until Apolo Dantés beat him for it. In 1994 Satánico gained a measure of revenge on Apolo Dantés as he won the CMLL World Middleweight Championship from him, making him one of the few people to have held both the Mexican National, NWA World and CMLL World championship in the Middleweight division. Satánico would go on to hold the CMLL Middleweight title for a total of 1,561 days, by far the longest reign of any CMLL World Middleweight Champion. On March 21, 1997 Satánico won his third CMLL World Trios title, this time teaming up with Rey Bucanero (the nephew of Pirata Morgan) and Emilio Charles, Jr. to win the vacant titles in a one-night eight-team tournament. The trio only held the title for 39 days before they were defeated by La Ola Azur ("The Blue Wave"; Atlantis, Lizmark and Mr. Niebla). In mid-1997 Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) wrestler TAKA Michinoku tourned Mexico to gain international experience. On June 20, 1997 Satánico defeated Michinoku to win the FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship, a title he held until August 25, 1997 where Michinoku won it back shortly before returning to Japan. On March 7, 1999 Satánico's marathon reign as CMLL World Middleweight Champion ended when his old rival Ringo Mendoza won the title from him.

Los Nuevo Infernales
In the late 1990s Satánico reformed Los Infernales, recruiting Rey Bucanero and Último Guerrero to form Los Nuevo Infernales (the new Infernals). The Trio won the Copa de Arena Mexico Tournament in 1999, but did not win any titles. After working together for just under a year Bucanero and Guerrero turned on Satánico, kicking him out of Los Nuevo Infernales, replacing him with Tarzan Boy. Satánico formed his own "Infernales" with Averno and Mephisto. When Tarzan Boy was injured Los Nuevo Infernales brought in Máscara Mágica to bolster the group. The storyline between Los Infernales and Los Nuevo Infernales came to a head when the two teams, 7 men all together, faced off in a steel cage match where the winners would earn the right to the name "Los Infernales" and the last man in the cage would lose either his mask or his hair. On September 28, 2001 Satánico's team won the right to the Infernales name and forced Máscara Mágica to unmask. After losing the match Guerrero, Bucanero and Tarzan Boy became known collectively as Los Guerreros del Infierno (The Infernal Solders). On Junu 23, 2002 Satánico, Averno and Mephisto defeated the trio of Mr. Niebla, Olímpico and Safari to win the Mexican National Trios Championship. Los Infernales would only hold the Trios title for approximately 3 months before losing it to La Familia de Tijuana (Damián 666, Halloween and Nicho el Millonario). Averno and Mephisto turned on Satánico shortly after the title loss and formed their own group known as La Trada del Terror (the trio of terror) along with Ephesto. On November 25, 2003 El Satánico won the last championship of his long career when he defeated El Felino to win the CMLL World Welterweight Championship. Satánico held the title until February 24, 2004 when his former protégé Mephisto defeated him for the belt.

In 2007 Satánico reformed Los Infernales once more, teaming with young wrestlers that had recently been repackaged to more "hellish" images, Nosferatu and Euforia. The trios did not approached the success of the previous incarnations of Los Infernales, working mainly lower to mid-card matches; the group was intended to give the two young wrestlers more ring experience and further their training under Satánico’s watchful eye. In 2009 Satánico announced that he was reducing the number of shows he worked to focus on his work at CMLL’s wrestling school.

Wrestling trainer
Satánico is considered one of the best wrestling trainers currently active in Mexico, following in the footsteps of his own mentor Diablo Velazco. He is the headtrainer for CMLL's wrestling school in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico (Gimnasio del Diablo Velazco) and thus has been involved in training a lot of the wrestlers CMLL employs as well as students who have gone on to work for other promotions around the world. The following is a list of some of the wrestlers Satánico has trained.

In wrestling

 * Finishing moves
 * Standing figure four leglock


 * Signature moves
 * Backslide
 * Low blow
 * Senton

Championships and accomplishments

 * Empresa Mexicana de la Lucha Libre / Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre
 * CMLL World Middleweight Championship (1 time)
 * CMLL World Trios Championship (3 times) – with MS-1 and Pirata Morgan (2), Emilio Charles, Jr. and Rey Bucanero (1)
 * CMLL World Welterweight Championship (1 time)
 * Mexican National Middleweight Championship (3 times)
 * Mexican National Trios Championship (3 times) – with MS-1 and Pirata Morgan (2) and Mephisto and Averno (1)
 * NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship (4 times)
 * NWA World Middleweight Championship (5 times)


 * Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling
 * FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)


 * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
 * PWI ranked him #74 of the 500 best singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1997


 * Universal Wrestling Association
 * UWA World Middleweight Championship (1 time)


 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards
 * Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 2001)