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“Love Machine” Art Barr – Second generation wrestler. The son of long-time Portland wrestling fixture Sandy Barr and the brother of Jesse Barr (Jimmy Jack Funk). He started his career in Portland in 1987, but due to being a small mainly worked openers. It wasn’t until 1989 when Rowdy Roddy Piper re-gimmicked him as Beetlejuice (based off the popular movie). He became one of the more popular wrestlers in Portland at that time and WCW took notice. He joined WCW, but changed his name to “The Juicer” (no joke, due to copyright reasons). During that time, Barr was found guilty of sexual harrassment in Oregon and it led to negative press about him that eventually led to WCW releasing him. Barr was in WCW at around the time Konnan made a brief run in 1990 as part of a tag team tournament in 1990 and Konnan took notice. Konnan brought in both Barr and Norman Smiley (Black Magic, who was also part of that same tag tourney held for Starrcade ’90) to Mexico for EMLL in 1991. Barr was given the masked gimmick of “The Love Machine” and was part of the tecnicos. He got over pretty quickly. He began a singles feud with one of EMLL’s more respected rudos, Blue Panther. They had a mask vs. mask match on April 23rd, 1992 which drew a huge crowd to Arena Mexico. As the match progressed, fans started cheering heavily for the rudo and Mexican Blue Panther and were fully on his side when Love Machine hit Blue Panther with ‘el martinete’ (piledriver) and was disqualified due to that move being banned in Mexico. He removed the mask, but continued on as a tecnico in EMLL. When Antonio Peña split from EMLL and started AAA with several wrestlers including Konnan, Konnan recruited Art Barr and he eventually joined AAA. He came in as a tecnico and he would revive his recent EMLL feud with Blue Panther (who had also jumped to AAA). The two had yet another big singles match. This time it was Panther’s mask vs. Barr’s hair. Match was held on July 18th, 1993 and again Blue Panther had the fans on his side and came out victorious. Barr lost the match via disqualification due to his second, Perro Aguayo getting involved. After the loss, Barr and Blue Panther’s second, Fishman, attacked Aguayo. Barr turned rudo and was just one step from creating history. One month after losing the hair match, in a trios match, Barr ripped off El Hijo del Santo’s mask, put it on, and attacked Eddie Guerrero (who was a tecnico teaming with Santo). This led to Guerrero turning on El Hijo del Santo and led to him becoming Barr’s tag team partner as the duo known as “La Pareja del Terror”. They also developed a classic rivalry with the tag team of El Hijo del Santo and Octagon including winning the AAA/IWC World Tag Team Titles. The duo would eventually turn into a rudo faction as Konnan joined them and later several others would join at various times. On November 6th, 1994, Barr would be a part of a co-promoted PPV between AAA and WCW in a tag team match teaming with Guerrero against El Hijo del Santo & Octagon in a hair vs. masks match. The match turned out to be a classic and resulted in both Barr and Guerrero getting noticed by several promotions including ECW, WCW and WWE (WWF at the time) as well as Barr getting booked for a New Japan show. Sadly Barr never made it as three weeks after When Worlds Collide, he was found dead. He is remembered by many fans for his wrestling ability, charisma and success in Mexico.