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.

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When They Come to Take LA Park Down, When They Bring That Wagon 'Round

LA Park/Rey Fenix/Volador Jr. vs. Rush/Terrible/Cibernetico CMLL 6/15/18 - FUN

ER: I'm sure there's someone out there who was excited when Cibernetico was suddenly brought into this feud. But I'm also sure there's someone out there who eats their own feces, so that qualifier doesn't mean a whole lot. And, since this is just a numbers game, there are probably actually more people in the world who eat their own feces than there are people who were excited to see Cibernetico in a CMLL main event in 2018. But this also just happened to be the match I was in the mood to watch. We got good energy the previous week, this was a toned down soap opera which had a lot of acting and allowed time for a lot of individual personality. We had a big early peak with some big spots, a big LA Park dive, big flip dives from Fenix and Volador, and a great looking section with Fenix throwing awesome spin kicks to Cibernetico's jaw and rolling into place for moves like a ninja, even back bumping lengthwise on the top rope at one point as part of a springboard arm drag. Fenix is shining in the big Arena, and he's an awesome flashy addition to this group. The rest of this straight falls trios is slow burn gags and schtick, several different bits with different combos that were all allowed to breathe. Long belt whippings by both sides, Park whipping backs and chests, Volador and Terrible with a super long staredown with Volador working a bunch of comedy faces and Terrible cutting off rope running flips from Volador and Fenix with mid air punches. Terrible also misses a big leaping punch and clocks La Comandante. Earlier Comandante rubbed Rush's back to calm him down, and I bet that felt kinda gross. Rush wins both falls with bullshit screw jobs, the first of which inspires Commissioner Rambo to get up on the entrance ramp showing his disappointment in referee Edgar for being such a fuck up, while wearing a full length black overcoat. It's the highspot of the match, which also featured a Park spear on Rush that would have left me with 4 broken ribs. Before that we get a wonderfully slow played Park/Rush moment of Park rubbing his belly across the face of a kneeling Rush, and Rush selling it with this great gulping Vince McMahon face. Cibernetico has trunks that say "Main Man" on the back in kicky letters, which is so douchey it should be on the back of some white jeans. Oh, it might be slightly worth noting that fucking nunchucks get involved and fought over, and then Park actually appears like a man who knows how to use nunchucks and does a stretch of photograph worthy showing off.  The bullshit finishes were silly but fun, overly dramatic and cheesy, but getting loud reactions from the crowd. This was all fun popcorn drama.

PAS: This didn't have the violence of the previous weeks matches, this felt much more like a house show lucha shtick trios, like we needed a star and a spot where everyone misses dives. Park is a great shtick wrestler, I loved him rubbing his fat belly on Rush's face, and the nunchucks spot was classic GIF worthy horseshit, but this was a weird build to a violent singles match. Things really should be escalating and this felt like a week off. Fenix has a bunch of fun rope tricks and great agility, but he is a great brawler too, and I would have liked to see him bring that side to this feud. Cibernetico is an inexplicable addition to the indy CMLL invasion, he brings nothing to the match and is a big step down from Bestia, who is at least a crowbar. I enjoyed this, but it isn't what I wanted to see (spoiler alert.. they turned it around big time next week)

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Lucha Worth Watching: Blue Demon Jr., IWA-MS Wrestler

1. Blue Demon Jr. vs. LA Park vs. Silver King (Liga Elite 9/9/16)

ER: This match is pretty notable just because of the ridiculous beating that Demon takes. I've seen Demon in some damn lazy performances, and here he just gets pummeled. This performance made me feel sympathy for Demon, and somehow root for him. That's never happened before. Park and King just start beating on him with hard plastic chairs, and even throw him 4 rows into the crowd. Demon takes a man size bump getting tossed through a bunch of chairs, really crazy and out of character for him. He disappears for awhile after getting absolutely wailed on, and then we get more of a Park/King brawl. King hits his middle rope dive to the floor, Park gets launched into the crowd and takes an even more brutal bump than Demon. Eventually Demon makes his triumphant return and waylays dudes with chairs, masks get yanked up, DQ's happen, and I weirdly earned some respect for Demon. Strange for him to turn 50 and start taking furious beatings. I mean, I was at a Timothy Thatcher/Blue Demon match where Thatcher started the match with a stiff chop and Demon clearly leaned in and told him to back off, as Thatcher then held way back on every strike the rest of the match. And here Demon isn't even in Arena Mexico and he's getting beaten like he owes money. Crazy choice, but respect.

2. Blue Demon Jr./Xtreme Tiger/Golden Magic vs. Rey Escorpion/Sharly Rockstar/Cibernetico (Liga Elite 9/14/16)

ER: Blue Demon is now apparently this past his prime southern brawler, still working indies and paler and fatter than he was in the 8x10s he's selling, taken in his prime 20 years prior. Blue Demon comes out slowly, with his shoulder in a sling because of what happened up above on this electronic page. He immediately gets sucked into a brawl on the floor with Escorpion, who is pretty much the worst guy in lucha to get sucked into a brawl with. He'll beat the skin off of your face. And immediately he's beating Demon into the crowd, hitting him with chairs, kicking him through other chairs, Demon is falling around on concrete with one arm, getting thrown over the railing, just taking another beating. Later he gets to stand tall in the ring, bravely going up against everyone like he had two good wings, bending Rockstar into a nice, violent cloverleaf with his good arm, great triumphant tecnico moment. Xtreme Tiger lives up to his name and hits a rana from the top rope, onto Escorpion on the apron, and landing on his feet while Rey took a violent bump into the narrow and hard ringside area. Good lord, guys. Cibernetico is kind of a poor man's Pierroth in this, a rigid gassed up stiff working dude. But, that's an easy step up from typical Cibernetico. Golden Magic also stood out to me for the first time, even though I've seen him probably 6 times already. He's a generic tecnico but hits some nice generic tecnico spots, big rana and nice armdrag. He's got a cool mask and a good look, nice guy to have on the cards in a trios. I usually don't expect a good match when Blue Demon AND Cibernetico are in it, but this was a good one. I don't know what's wrong with me, suddenly becoming a Blue Demon @ 50 fan.

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Lucha Worth Watching: Older Man Belt Whippin'

LA Park vs. Cibernetico (Liga Elite 4/13/16)

ER: This was a great fat Elvis performance from Park: Missing half the words on Suspicious Minds, a lot of catching his breath, playing to the crowd too much, letting them sing the words so he can catch his breath more, looking even more unhealthy since the last time you saw him...yet you can't tear your eyes away from one of the most captivating performers ever. Park is the biggest I've seen him, and Cibernetico still wrestles like Cibernetico. But it's an Arena Mexico main event, big crowd, and they love Park. Cibernetico jumps him on the rampway and kicks him into the ring. Cibernetico runs this thing for awhile, rips at Park's mask, rips Park's belt/girdle off. Park ends up hitting a big dive, splatting onto the floor, and whips Cibernetico with that belt. I love belt whipping in lucha, the mannerisms and crowd play just make it the best. Ref keeps trying to stop him and Park keeps going yeah yeah yeah I'm still gonna whip him. Eventually we build to Park hitting a mammoth plancha off the top to the floor, filmed from below so it looks like he's jumping off an apartment building. Both men lie dead on the floor, with medical staff coming over to potentially stretcher Cibernetico away, after having just witnessed him being crushed by a dropped piano. Park makes it back inside and looks vulnerable. I can't imagine being that heavy and doing a big dive like that. He drags himself back in and still manages to play to the fans. Finish is a mess with Park getting unmasked then fouling Cibernetico, but they did a weird double pin with both men supposedly covering each other but with it only looking like Park is covering. We get hair and mask challenges after and the fans flip out, and the whole time I was just sitting there slack jawed in admiration of the big fat king.

Ultimo Guerrero vs. Volador Jr. (CML 8/30/16)

ER: You wanna double down on your old man lucha whippings? Of course you do! Here UG jumps Volador on the ramp and begins whipping him around with his plastic-y vest. First we get some standard shots to the back but before long UG is juts whipping Volador right across the face with this vest. Have you ever been snapped by a towel? It stings like hell. And it's usually to the hip or thigh or buttock. But here UG is essentially towel whipping Volador in the face and it sucks for Volador and is awesome for us. UG whips him to the floor and knocks him into the front row (CMLL tecnicos have really perfected that quick head over heels bump over the railing into the crowd) and launches his hip attack. Match peaks with Volador going for a flip dive to the floor and getting caught, lifted into powerbomb position, and flung sideways into the barrier. Good gracious. Later on UG would one up Volador's bump over the barrier by taking a fast Jerry bump to the floor before getting nailed with a Volador flip dive. I don't typically care for the terceras in these kind of main events, and before long we're in the morass of 2.9 counts after big moves and a transparent fake fault finish. The big moves down the stretch built fine, and there was especially impressive moment where Volador was going for a top rope rana, UG blocked it, lifted him up for a top rope powerbomb, and while UG was jumping off the ropes to deliver the bomb Volador reversed it back into the rana. Crazy/impressive stuff. Come for the nasty vest whipping, stay around for a couple pros doing their thing amid some impressive shows of strength.

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