Peña's promotion reached its height of popularity in the early 1990s prior to the 1994 downturn of the Mexican economy,[1] but continues to operate.

Prior to founding AAA, Peña was the head booker of Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, the world's oldest professional wrestling promotion.

Peña was trained by Rojas, Isias Rodríguez, Toño Hernández and his uncle before making his professional wrestling debut in 1974 at the age of 18.

[2] Peña began his wrestling career as the enmascarado (masked) character El Genio (Spanish for "The Genius") on April 8, 1974.

[4] While a gifted performer in the ring backstage he was described as more of a quiet, thoughtful person who would often talk about how he would change Lucha Libre and add more character and showmanship to it.

[2] Peña had been active backstage for years before his retirement, always offering suggestions of wrestling gimmicks, storylines and booking, so when he retired Peña was hired by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), Mexico's oldest professional wrestling promotion, to work in their public relations department.

Peña and head booker Juan Herrera worked together to capitalize on the 1980s television boom, making EMLL the top promotion in its time.

[6] Peña was the creative force behind CMLL's Mini-Estrella division and wanted to feature more non-heavyweight wrestlers in the main events.

In 1992 Peña started a booking agency, providing wrestlers and matches for the Televisa owned Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) promotion.

AAA's pinnacle came in 1993 when they drew the largest wrestling crowd in Mexico ever as they staged Triplemanía I in front of 48.000 paying fans.