Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez was ordained a Catholic priest in Mexico in 1973. Around 1976, he founded a home for boys in the Diocese of Texcoco, in the State of Mexico. It started with 15 boys, and it needed money to keep going.
His idea came from an early-1960s Mexican film, El Señor Tormenta, about a priest who wrestles. He decided to try it for real. After about a year of training, he stepped into a lucha libre ring in 1977 wearing a red-and-yellow mask and calling himself Fray Tormenta, "Friar Storm." His first match paid 200 pesos, and he donated all of it to the home.
He would keep wrestling for 38 years. More than 2,000 children would pass through the home, and his story would later inspire films, including the 2006 Hollywood comedy Nacho Libre, starring Jack Black. But when he started, he had a much bigger number in mind. His goal, he later said, was to "make a million dollars" from wrestling in one year.
