Juan José Barrón Medina (born September 22, 1952) is a retired Mexican Luchador, or professional wrestler, under the ring name Gran Cochisse. Barrón is currently working as one of the head trainers at the Gimnasio del Diablo Velazco wrestling school in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. The school is one of the wrestling schools for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL). While wrestling he used the ring character Gran Cochisse, a Native American character that incorporated traditional Native American imagery including the feathered headdresses and facepaint. He was nicknamed El Indio Bravo ("The brave Indian") and is named after the Apache chief Cochise. Early in his career he often teamed with Águila India (Indian Eagle) to form a successful tag team. During his wrestling career Barrón held the UWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship one time and the NWA World Middleweight Championship three times.
Juan Barrón made his professional wrestling debut on October 2, 1966, at only 14 years of age, after training under Mexico's most renowned wrestling trainer Diablo Velazco. Barrón adopted a Native American character while wrestling called "Gran Cochisse" ("The Great Cochise") named after the Apache chief Cochise. Gran Cochisse wore the traditional feathered headdresses, facepaint and often carried a tomahawk with him to the ring to support the character.[1] Gran Cochisse formed a regular tag team with Aguila India ("Indian Eagle"), to form a very popular and successful tag team. Together the team held the Occidente (western) Tag Team Championship at least once.
It was not until 1984, a full 18 years after his debut that Gran Cochisse won his first major singles title when he defeated El Satánico on AUgust 18, 1984 to win the NWA World Middleweight Championship.[2] His first reign with the title only lasted 27 days, as he lost it to Satánico on September 14 that same year as part of a long running feud between the two. Cochisse regained the title from Satánico only a few weeks later on September 30, 1984, and held it until November 18, 1984, before losing it to Gran Hamada[2] Gran Cochisse's third and final run with the NWA World Middleweight Championship began on May 18, 1986, when he defeated Chamaco Valaguez to win the title and lasted 152 days, longer than his previous two reigns combined, until he was pinned by Kung Fu on October 17, 1986, and lost the belt.[2] In the latter years of the 1980s Gran Cochisse began working for the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) where he became the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Champion on September 16, 1988, by defeating Blue Panther.[3] His run with the UWA title lasted for 225 days in total, until April 29, 1989, when he was beaten by Ringo Mendoza.[3] In the early part of the 1990s Barrón worked as an enmascarado, or masked, character called Espectro de Ultratumba ("The Ghost from beyond the grave") but by then it was obvious that his career as an active wrestler was winding down. In the late 1990s Gran Cochisse greatly reduced his schedule and began working full-time training wrestlers.
Gran Cochisse is one of the trainers for CMLL's wrestling school in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico and thus has been involved in training a lot of the wrestlers CMLL currently 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 Gran Cochisse has trained.
Barrón is married to retired professional wrestler La Magnífica and together they have at least four children. One their daughter wrestles as the current version of La Magnífica while another daughter wrestles under the name Super Estrella. Their son wrestles as Saturno who is under a CMLL contract. He is the father-in-law of CMLL wrestler El Sagrado who is married to one of Barrón's daughters that is not involved in professional wrestling.[33]
^Madigan, Dan (2007). "what's in a name". Mondo Lucha Libre: the bizarre & honorable world of wild Mexican wrestling. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 209–211. ISBN978-0-06-085583-3.
^ abcdRoyal Duncan & Gary Will (2006). "EMLL NWA World Middlweight Title". Wrestling Title Histories (4th ed.). Archeus Communications. pp. 389–390. ISBN0-9698161-5-4.
^ abcRoyal Duncan & Gary Will (2000). "Mexico: Universal Wrestling Federation Junior Light Heavyweight Title". Wrestling Title Histories. Archeus Communications. p. 397. ISBN0-9698161-5-4.
^"Rudos - Acertijo" (in Spanish). Fuego en el Ring. Retrieved October 21, 2009.
^"Tecnicos - Virgo" (in Spanish). Fuego en el Ring. Retrieved October 21, 2009.
^Madigan, Dan (2007). "A family affair". Mondo Lucha Libre: the bizarre & honorable world of wild Mexican wrestling. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 128–132. ISBN978-0-06-085583-3.
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