Villano III
Mexican professional wrestler
Arturo Díaz Mendoza (March 23, 1952 – August 21, 2018), best known by his ring name Villano III (Spanish: "Villano Tercero"; English: "Villain the Third"), was a Mexican professional wrestler. A second-generation wrestler, he was the son of professional wrestler Ray Mendoza and the father of fellow professional wrestlers Villano III Jr. and El Hijo del Villano III. All five of the Díaz brothers used the Villano name; José de Jesús (Villano I), José Alfredo (Villano II), Tomás (Villano IV) and Raymundo (Villano V). Of the five Villanos, Arturo was considered the most successful in terms of championship and Lucha de Apuestas ("bet match") wins, as well as the most talented professional wrestler in the family. Due to health issues stemming from wrestling, he retired in 2015. A few days after his death, he was inducted in the AAA Hall of Fame.
During his 35-year career, Díaz was a featured performer for the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) and all major Mexican promotions such as Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) and Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA), as well as numerous notable smaller Mexican promotions like International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG). Díaz was a masked professional wrestler until 2000, when he lost to Atlantis and had to unmask as a result. The match against Atlantis was later voted "Match of the Year" in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter year-end awards. In contrast, one of his last matches ever, which took place at Triplemanía XXIII, was voted the "worst match of the year" in 2015.
“Villano III” enters the record as mexican professional wrestler. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Villano, Mexican and professional can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q578115. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2018, 2015 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Villano III” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.