William Boo
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Obituary
Héctor Oscar Brea, who as “William Boo” (also called “William Amadeus Boo”)was by far the most famous referee in his home country in the history of professional wrestling, passed away this morning at the age of 79. He died at The Instituto Dupuytrén in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after a brief illness, though after a long bout with Type II (adult Onset) Diabetes, as Brea was quite obese most of his adult life. This was his third trip to the hospital this year; the first was for fifteen days, and he apparently just avoided having a foot amputated at that time.
A video of Boo in action is currently at: http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/10/20/um/m-01293836.htm.
Who is the most famous referee ever in wrestling? To me, it can only be one man……. Let me ask you this. When the Seattle Seahawks were the “victims” of bad officiating in Super Bowl XL, did the announcers immediately call that an “Earl Hebner call?” When Japan got jobbed just this week in the World Baseball Classic, did the announcers immediately call that a “Shiro Abe call?” Yet there is a heel referee, who, some 20 to 25 years after his last match, whose name is still occasionally referred to in his native country when bad calls arise in legit sports, as l shown below.
William Boo was born as Héctor Oscar Brea 79 years ago today, March 15th, 1927, in a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Due to his large build (he was taller and much heavier than the average Argentinean man of the 20th century), his foreign ring name, and his prematurely whitish-gray hair, Boo was often thought to be of European descent. Some people thought this because, after all, the primary co-founder of Titanes En El Ring, Martín Karadagian (who several - but certainly not all - sources I have seen, say that his real last name is more properly spelled in Argentinean usage with a “C” as the first letter rather than “K,” indeed, one surviving nephew, Paolo de Caradagian, is fairly insistent on that matter), was of Armenian descent, some of his family fleeing the “ethnic cleansing” of the early 1900’s in what is now Turkey, and Karadagian fully and openly acknowledged this whenever asked. During quite a number of years of the first half of the 20th century, Buenos Aires and Argentina attracted quite a large (Eastern- and Western-) European-expatriate community, often fleeing religious persecution or a World War. However, Boo himself claims to be from a long line of native Argentineans.
Boo’s story as a referee in inextricably intertwined with Karadigian’s Titanes promotion. Karadagian, his wife, and his “co-founders” Joe Galera and Jorge Boccaci assumed control of a small wrestling promotion in 1954 from Buenos Aires’s La Luna Park Arena, and, by 1962, had gained a TV sport on Buenos Aires’s Channel 9. Among the wrestlers who first appeared on television in 1962 were Karadagian, La Momia, El Caballero Rojo, Yolanka, S.T.P., Il Comendatore, El Mercenario Joe – and Boo.
The promotion became such a hit that the larger Channel 13 bought the rights to air the show in 1972, in a television studio-cum-arena where they squeezed 2000 fans in every week to see the TV taping. The Argentinean magazine Panorama defined "Titanes in Ring" like "... the best program on television by its freshness, its vitality and its invention, that the most riotous surrealism occurs - at a primitive but authentic level -.”
Behind that success there were many people working very hard to ensure success – and the big day was the Monday, day of the booking meeting. Nobody was allowed to be absent for the decisive Monday meetings. "It is more important that the fight", said Karadagian. Everyone expressed his opinion, and reviewed work, e.g. what happened in such fight, what must be improved, how to get each character over. All the meetings were characterized by a great discipline. Each character this evolved; each one had its role. Even though a great privacy was maintained, the new eventually was told, much of it in a book self-published by Karadagian’s daughter Paulina.
One person with great responsibility in these meetings, as well as in the ring, was Héctor Oscar Brea, famous referee William Boo. In his beginnings (circa 1954) he was a luchador, where he first met and cemented a great friendship with Karadagian. Boo was even the one in charge of the gymnasium (eventually he may have even owned this gym or had at least a financial interest in it) where every night he supervised the dismantling of the ring, and he was one of the lead trainers of the younger wrestlers during the week. He was the one who recommended the Luna Park Arena to Karadagian.
¡But we remember Boo for his heel refereeing most of all! He has been described many ways, but one of the most succinct, and one that represents a common view, says “When considering referees of Titanes, one thinks mainly of the unforgettable William Boo, a malignant judge who always tried that ensure that the villains prevail - although not very often very successfully. Corpulent, almost looking as if he were pregnant, Boo was often in charge of the heel wrestling gang ‘La Semillita.’” Another say, “Fair play in lucha libre was always ‘embarrassed’ [this is meant as a pun on Boo’s fatness as the author of this sentence uses a deliberate misspelling of the word “embarasada” which when correctly spelled means “pregnant” in Spanish], taken down into the mud with arbitration of William Boo.”
Many writers and fans remember how easy it was for fans to openly yell “¡Noooo Señor Boo!” when they saw the evilness emerging! And Boo would never let his decisions be appealed or overturned, by wrestlers, “commissioners,” or even Karadagian (except for a big angle, of course). Many remember an early 1970’s bout where Boo screwed El Indio Comanche to give a big TV bout to La Momia Negra.
Boo was the corrupt referee with charisma, who, in spite of appearing to be more thief than referee, was always chosen as the referee for any “major match” in the promotion. More than one Argentinean commentator said something along these line, “If one more analyzes this a little, it is going to occur to him that this small detail (the arbiter of justice being evil) does no more than to reflect something of our own dear culture and idiosyncrasies.
Not may of the old Titanes original remain alive. In the year 2000, the noted (well, he’s well known in Buenos Aries) TV talk show host Julian Weich, who at that time had the number one Saturday night television show in Buenos Aires, on Channel 13, was doing a gimmick where two famous people in Buenos Aires invited their mentors or inspirations and “competed” with each other. On this 2000 show, a soccer referee invited another referee, older and fatter, no longer with an evil face, and the soccer referee tried to compete shtick versus shtick (getting phony-angry) with ¡William Boo!
Two years later, on that very same show, Weich invited Boo and three other men from the old Titanes promotion, the week that would have been the 30th anniversary of the show’s debut on Channel 13 (and close to what would have been Karadagian’s 80th birthday). I no longer have the article available to me, but if memory serves me correctly, these four men were at that time thought to be among the very few survivors of the main crew (I do know that Boo, Jorge Bocacci, El Caballero Rojo, Mister Moto, Gitano Ivanoff, La Momia, and Pepino were still alive as of 2002).
But what separates William Boo form any other wrestling promoter by far is the impact he made on his culture. For example, in an article in Argentina’s main sports newspaper, ¡Olé!, of June 3rd, 2005, more than 20 yeas since Boo’s last match, he is still held up as the standard for bad refereeing throughout legit Argentinean sport (see http://www.ole.clarin.com/jsp/v3/pagina.jsp?pagId=988584). And, his name crops up even more recently that year in the very same source and in a vaguely similar vein (http://www.ole.clarin.com/jsp/v3/pagina.jsp?pagId=1063355). A search of that paper’s archives (not an easy thing to do, but anyone can do it if they wish to kill a half an hour or so) will find actually quite a few references this century to the man who still defines the inherent unfairness and evilness of “the man,” William Boo. The mainstream Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación has available eight other references in the last decade to Boo, at http://buscador.lanacion.com.ar/index.asp, the most recent last July 1st, where “El Gran Gattoni” was interviewed about the release of his memoirs of life in the ring (and I though the WWE had a book monopoly!). Also, articles about Titanes clones in Uruguay and Chile, available on the interent, show that their founders tried to create a heel referee almost exactly in the mold of Boo.
20+ years after his last appearance in the ring! And he was still the standard for them all! In fact, in its obituary today, the Argentinean national sports daily Ole linked to one of its articles from 2002 illustrating just this very point.
