Silver King (wrestler) - Wrestling Career - Black Tiger III

Black Tiger III

After leaving WCW, he returned to CMLL and began wrestling for CMLL's Japanese affiliate, New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). In 2001, he adopted the Black Tiger character previously used by Mark Rocco and Eddie Guerrero making him the third person to appear under the mask, which is why he’s generally referred to as Black Tiger III. As Black Tiger, he wrestled several tours with New Japan starting out working a series of matches with the storyline opponent of the Black Tiger, Tiger Mask – in this case Tiger Mask IV the latest and current wearer of the mask. Together with his brother Dr. Wagner Jr. he had an unsuccessful IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship challenge against the team of Jushin Liger and El Samurai in 2001. During 2003 NJPW began to phase out most of the Luchadors they had employed over the years and thus Black Tiger III began working regularly in Mexico for CMLL, this marked the first time the gimmick was used for a longer period of time outside of NJPW. Since the storyline in Mexico was that Black Tiger III was Japanese they could not acknowledge the fact that he and Dr. Wagner, Jr. were in fact brothers (in Japan Black Tiger has until now always been portrayed by a foreigner). He usually ended up as Dr. Wagner Jr.’s back-up but on March 31, 2001 Black Tiger III, Dr. Wagner Jr. and Universo 2000 won the CMLL World Trios Championship from Atlantis, Black Warrior and Mr. Niebla. The team would hold the Trios titles for over a year until being unseated on July 9, 2004 by Black Warrior, El Canek and Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. When their father (Dr. Wagner) died on September 12, 2004 Dr. Wagner, Jr. was turned tecnicó (good guy by sympathy but since González was working as Black Tiger III and not publicly acknowledged as the son of Dr. Wagner he remained a rudó (bad guy). Dr. Wagner Jr.’s turn meant that Black Tiger III did not have a partner or a direction, he began working for CMLL’s associate International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG) and some of the smaller CMLL shows, basically in a holding pattern. González kept working as Black Tiger even when NJPW introduced Rocky Romero as the latest Black Tiger (Black Tiger IV) but due their working relationship with NJPW, CMLL decided that when González worked for them he needed a different "persona". He was repackaged as "El Bronco" complete with a new mask and promoted as someone new to CMLL. González made his debut as "El Bronco" teaming up with Elektro (who had just jumped from Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) to CMLL) and L.A. Park against the original members of Los Guerreros del Infierno (Último Guerrero, Rey Bucanero and Tarzan Boy). The match was seen as a letdown as the crowd did not appreciate Elektro and did not buy into the "El Bronco" gimmick and the scheduled rematch was rebooked with Hijo del Lizmark and Místico taking over their roles in the match and González as El Bronco replacing Lizmark Jr. in the 2005 Gran Alternativa tournament where his team lost in the first round. After the Gran Alternativa González only made sporadic CMLL appearances as González. González continued to wrestle as Black Tiger III in IWRG and in other independent Mexican wrestling promotions. On February 4, 2006 González finally gave up the Black Tiger name as he lost a "Luchas de Apuestas" to L.A. Park and was unmasked. After losing his mask González went back to working as Silver King wherever he went.