On Brand Segunda Caida: Pierroth in WWF!

Man, what might have been. By 1996 WCW had some of the best luchadors in the world, and they were becoming popular attractions on WCW undercards. Naturally, WWF brought in some of the leftover luchadors to compete, even though most of the luchadors WWF brought in couldn't really work the same style that was the actual reason for WCW luchadors becoming a popular attraction. It was a move inspired by any well-intentioned mother who bought her teen a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards because he played Magic: The Gathering. It's an attempt, but with no actual knowledge behind the attempt. "This is a card game and I know you like card games" = "Here are Mexican wrestlers and apparently people like Mexican wrestlers now". It was misguided and done with seemingly no knowledge of why they were doing it. This was NBC's "Joey", a Friends spinoff made by people who seemingly had never seen an episode of Friends and had no clue why people enjoyed the Joey Tribbiani character. It was a short-lived experiment that only lasted a couple of months, yet somehow the AAA luchadors got a showcase trios on the Royal Rumble card. A couple of the guys brought in seemed to be pushed above the others: Hector Garza (who makes sense as he was a hunky guy in his 20s who could do a nice tornillo) and...Pierroth.

Since one of the duties of Segunda Caida is to champion any luchador using the Pierroth name, WE obviously understood their intentions. But it was kind of odd. Pierroth then was the same age I am now, which feels old to be getting a new name push in WWF. While other luchadors got a showcase match at the '97 Rumble, Pierroth was actually IN the Rumble. This man was the Champion of Champions, according to Jim Ross.

We won't actually go over the Rumble match here, as I know his elimination is still a touchy subject for many. Some believe that Pierroth was never officially eliminated, as he wasn't properly told the rules before the match, and they feel he shouldn't have been punished for "eliminating himself" with a plancha, and should still technically be an active entrant 22 years later; others, are wrong. Let's take a look at the bizarrely, briefly pushed 38 year old masked brawler, WWF Superstar Pierroth!


Pierroth vs. Matt Hardy WWF Superstars 12/22/96

ER: This was a really cool match, paced quick as hell and getting absolutely no love and attention from the crowd. Pierroth came off real mean, hard punches, quick snapmare followed by a stiff kick to Hardy's back, hard lariat, back elbow, a cool Rock Bottom before that existed in this fed, just came off like a real badass. He really looked like a great brawler. Hardy came off as crazy as his brother, hitting an unexpected split legged moonsault...but then he unexpectedly upped the crazy, hitting an Asai moonsault after springboarding to the TOP rope, BARELY rotating in time to not land straight on his head. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen, but Hardy started selling instantly and Pierroth got right up. It looked like the moonsault landed (albeit with Hardy possibly bouncing off his forehead to get there), but they had other plans I guess. Pierroth hits a solid contact pescado, really landing heavy, AND - and this is important - for those of you itching to know, Pierroth's finisher in the WWF was a cool folding powerbomb. If I was a kid and saw this I would want to see more of both guys, and then be confused when I only saw Pierroth a couple more times on TV.

Pierroth/Cibernetico vs. The New Rockers WWF Raw 12/23/96

ER: This was weird, and really cool! Vince and JR were really amusing on commentary, pointing out how the fans don't really know who to cheer for because they don't know the luchadors and they don't like the New Rockers. Vince also points out we haven't seen much flying from the Mexican team, and JR actually goes off on him: "You know, that's just an unfair stereotype about Spanish athletes. Some of the best ones are high flyers, but many of them aren't. Look at Perro Aguayo, a great brawler!" JR goes full Mike Tenay and shuts Vince right up. Marty Jannetty was a really great wrestler all throughout the 90s, and Al Snow vs. Pierroth is a match up I didn't know I wanted but clearly I do. Pierroth again works stiff, and Snow is a guy who will work stiff back, and I dug the chops they were throwing at each other. Snow bumps really big for Cibernetico, taking a cool armdrag reversal and then going down like a shot for a hard dropkick to his chest, later taking a soft but somewhat reckless tope that saw both crash into the guardrail. Jannetty threw two really nice punches including a cool short uppercut, and a fantastic flying fistdrop, and I dug Pierroth throwing a bunch of short arm chops to him, knocking him down with a chop but always holding onto an arm to drag Jannetty back up for more. Pierroth hits a killer release powerbomb and a splash with a hard landing to win. Pierroth has a 2 match winning streak in WWF! JR fully advertised that Pierroth was in his late 30s, pointing out that he had been wrestling over half his life at 20 years. This guy is really going places in late '96 WWF!

Doug Furnas/Phil Lafon vs. Pierroth/Cibernetico WWF Superstars 1/5/97

ER: This is particularly notable, because Pierroth grabs the mic and talks trash before the match, and then grabs it *again* to talk more trash after the match, the match he had just lost due to DQ. This is a total hidden gem of a tag. This one should be a syndicated classic. Can Ams were dangerous guys who always had the potential to eat up an opponent, but Cibernetico and Pierroth were fine if the Can-Ams wanted to try that. Pierroth starts this by going right after Furnas with hard chops and a stiff corner lariat. It's part of a great sequence where Pierroth gets Irish whipped chest first into the opposite buckle, then bumps forward out the ropes after eating a Furnas lariat to the back of the head. It was one of those airtight sequences that you could picture Arn or Bobby doing in a tag. He then went right in and took down Kroffat with a clutch single leg, felt like he was directly going after both Can-Ams strongest suit and it made him come off like a total badass. 

Furnas takes this monster Sgt. Slaughter bump over the corner after Pierroth dodges, and then when Furnas makes it back in Pierroth throws a fantastic punch right to the nose. Goddamn this match rules. If Pierroth knew of the Can Am's tough guy reps, he clearly did not care. Cibernetico was pretty raw (and well, never got Actually Good), but here he had some young guy stupid in him and that's a plus. He throws some kicks to Kroffat that looked like they earned him receipts, took a wild Furnas overhead belly to belly, Kroffat snap suplexed him as hard as he could, chopped him across the collar bones, tossed him hard with a snap back suplex, rough stuff. Cibernetico earned his keep. Pierroth and Furnas have a cool little violent brawl on the floor, Pierroth taking a great bump out there and an awesome chest first posting. We even get an excellent bullshit finish when Cibernetico pulls the ref into the way of a Kroffat crossbody. Can-Ams couldn't go over these two in 1997, because Pierroth was Too Fucking Strong. Ref called the DQ on Cibernetico, but this was 50% Kroffat. His body hit the ref. I'm calling Pierroth's WWF W-L at 2-0-1. 

Pierroth/Heavy Metal/Pentagon vs. Hector Garza/Latin Lover/Octagon WWF Raw 3/10/97

ER: Yep, you're right, this is total Weirdsville. Our luchadors were being presented strongly on television for a couple weeks leading up to the Rumble, then they had a featured trios at the Rumble to start the new year, Pierroth and Cibernetico got to actually be IN the Rumble match, and then...they disappear only to show up 2 months later, and then never again. This is your swan song boys. Go out in a blaze of glory. And by entrances alone, you can already call this a win. Latin Lover is wearing his cuffs and collar, Heavy Metal looks like a total sleaze star in leopard print tights, stringy hair hanging over his face, and an expression that makes him look like he's about to pull out a switchblade. So this is already great. But there was nothing these guys could have done. On paper they got 8 minutes, but it wasn't a fair 8 minutes. Everyone here works hard and they're actually starting to win people over and starting to get reactions...and then they show "That Woman" Chyna in the crowd and cut away from the ring for 90 seconds while she is removed (she had been showing up and causing problems, attacking Marlena and getting in the ring to confront Bret), then the moment they remove Chyna and go back to the ring, they cut to a split screen for a great (but also 90 second) Brian Pillman promo. Luchadors were doing dives, but Pillman was busy talking about the witching hour and there were just way too many things fighting for attention (this era of Raw had constant split screen cutaway promos, the screen action always felt very hectic).

Heavy Metal mostly paired off with Garza, Pierroth mostly paired off with Latin Lover, and Octagon/Pentagon did their thing, and it worked really well! Metal and Garza pushed a really fast pace. They're the guys who really started to get a reaction, doing fast armdrags, Metal did a big handspring elbow and did a fast rolling dropdown to take our Garza's legs, Garza landed on his feet on a moonsault and then hit a springboard crossbody, and people were finally making noise. Pierroth was good at actively yelling at fans in the front row to get them involved (it works) and throwing tons of hard short chops to Lover. LL's chest is red shortly into the match because of Pierroth, and that's a good thing. Heavy Metal takes a humongous Jerry bump to the floor, the dives all look good (even in split screen) and of course we cap it off with Garza's tornillo knocking everyone down like pins. The only thing weird about the ringwork is Latin Lover doing a frog splash to someone who wasn't even there (Metal had been standing for some time) and Metal just rolls him up with la magistral. That could have been cleaner. Still, the match was really fun and if the fed actually wanted to promote lucha, fans would have easily gotten into it. There's no reason they couldn't have just put them exclusively on Superstars or something, have occasional feature matches on Raw, it would have worked. But, most importantly, Pierroth wraps up his WWF career with a dominant 3-0-1 record.

JR referred to Pierroth as "The Champion of Champions" in every single one of his 4 featured matches. Clearly JR knew class when he saw it.