part of a brutal, cheating rudo (those that portray the "bad guys") El Canek. The UWA decided to have El Canek defeat Dr. Wagner to win the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship on January 15, 1978. The title run was used to build a storyline feud between El Canek and Dos Caras as Caras was immediately positioned as the next challenger and actually won the championship from El Canek on June 20, 1978 During the feud the fans responded favorably to the two wrestlers as each played their part to perfection, the physically imposing El Canek used his strength to dominate and gloat his way to becoming a rudo that the fans would gladly pay admission to see get beat up while Dos Caras became the quintessential tecnico, the hero of the people who overcame the odds and defeated the bad guys, while also being a very talented wrestler. On September 27, 1978 El Canek defeated the legendary Lou Thesz to win the UWA World Heavyweight Championship, a move that signaled that he was now the "top name" in the UWA, gaining international attention by defeating the multi-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion Thesz. Around the time that El Canek became the world champion the UWA also struck deals with various international wrestling promotions to exchange wrestlers to allow for an influx of foreign wrestlers. The main partner for the UWA was New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) that started sending some of their top wrestlers to Mexico in exchange for El Canek, Dos Caras and others making frequent tours of Japan in exchange. One such NJPW wrestler was Tiger Jeet Singh, who came to Mexico and had a short feud with El Canek before winning the UWA Heavyweight Championship on February 17, 1980. El Canek's unsuccessful challenges for Tiger Jeet Singh's championship drew sellout crowds for months. Almost a year later El Canek finally brought the championship "back" to Mexico defeating Tiger Jeet Sing on February 15. The success of El Canek fighting various foreign wrestlers drew such good crowds that it became the template for how the UWA would book El Canek and the world title for more than a decade. In between matches in Mexico against the "hated foreigners" El Canek would also travel to Japan and fight against some of NJPW's top wrestlers such as Tiger Mask and Tatsumi Fujinami. On July 23, 1982 NJPW wrestler Riki Choshu defeated