A professional wrestler has been arrested on a manslaughter charge after a longtime referee died during a lucha libre match in Hidalgo.
El Hijo de Fishman, 36, allegedly performed a piledriver on 75-year-old referee Gerardo German Pineda, known as El Buho, during a match against Mascara Sagrada on Wednesday. The bout was staged by the promotion El Patrón Espectáculos Lucha Libre.
Pineda did not get up after the move and was later pronounced dead.
Video circulating online from earlier in the match shows Fishman performing a bodyslam on Pineda. That move appears to have been carried out safely, and Pineda was seen moving afterward. A photo purporting to show the piledriver has also spread online, though its authenticity has not been confirmed, and no video of the piledriver itself has surfaced.
A piledriver is a move in which one wrestler lifts another vertically and gives the appearance of driving them head-first into the mat. Properly executed, the wrestler performing the move absorbs the impact with their own body so that the other wrestler’s head never actually strikes the surface. The move has caused real injuries in the past, including to wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, and was banned in WWE for a number of years.
According to the wrestling news account Luchablog, posting on X, local reports indicate Pineda lay motionless on the mat for several minutes before anyone checked on him, with onlookers assuming he was simply acting as part of the performance.
“There was reportedly no ambulance or medical personnel on hand; those are required for Hidalgo shows, and this card was running a bit under the radar,” Luchablog wrote.
Luchablog added that when paramedics eventually arrived, they could only confirm that Pineda had died. Police are holding El Hijo de Fishman in custody while the investigation continues.
El Patrón Espectáculos Lucha Libre described the incident as “regrettable” in a statement.
“Our company is attentive to the development of the situation and has arranged accompaniment and legal assistance for Hijo de Fishman, so that the corresponding process is carried out in accordance with the law and before the competent authorities,” the company said, according to Figure Four Online.
The company said its legal representative remains in contact with Pineda’s family and their legal representatives “to handle the case in the best way and guarantee respect for all parties involved.”
