Dominic DeAngelo, owner of Studio1Sports.com, co-host of “1 Of A Kind With RVD,” social media man for “Kliq This With Kevin Nash” sent along the following:
Vampiro Used JAWS As Creative Inspiration For Persona
The former WCW star talks about Lucha Underground & ending his American wrestling career in Las Vegas.
Vampiro isn’t one to wax poetic about hanging up his wrestling boots. He’s looking at this retirement run as a chance to get with fans and enjoy the ride. This culminates on April 17, WrestleMania weekend in Las Vegas as JCW hosts StrangleMania.
The lucha libre legend will be taking on PCO and Big Vito in triple threat action on what tops a stacked card featuring Rob Van Dam, Vince Russo, EC3, Nic Nemeth, Matt Riddle, and more.
JCW Lunacy has been catching fire as a cult favorite on YouTube, akin to what Lucha Underground was for the El Rey Network, which Vampiro was an integral part of.
Sitting down with myself and former WWE writer Robert Karpeles, Vampiro notes that ignorance and stupidity were what caused the product to end.
“We got a phone call from a very successful rock and roll act at the time. It was right before the Misfits’ reunion. Glenn Danzig was doing all these heavy metal horror fests, and Glenn Danzig is a wrestling fan.
“He said, ‘I wanna bring Lucha Underground out to some shows.’ What Lucha Underground asked for economically was six to seven times more than the whole heavy metal tour, and it was like, ‘Okay…’ so I did that, and that fell through, then, then, then? Then we’re all f***ing sitting there. No one knew, turn on the TV and there’s TNA with all our talent.”
“What are you doing? Your broadcast partner and investor is a guy named Mark Burnett, who is basically the owner of MGM. Do you really not see the problem that this might cause that you have the biggest name in history, MGM in Hollywood, and then you got Mark Burnett, ‘The Island,’ ‘Big Brother?’ And you’re going to take the names that you’re being invested in and hundreds of millions of dollars” … “So you take all of our top things and our heat, and you put it on to another network, another show, and we get beat by everybody who’s not even a major player in that company.”
Earlier on, Vampiro shared how Abdullah The Butcher taught him the storytelling aspect of violence. That sparked Vampiro to watch horror films and in turn, look at heels in a much different light.
“What made horror movies work? And if you think about Friday the 13th or Freddy Krueger, that’s not scary. But if you look at the very first Jaws movie, you know the fucking shark is in the water.
“You know he’s there. You don’t see the shark until the end of the movie. But you know not to go in the water.
“So if you’re a heel, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do is let the public know that baby face is going to get f***ed up at some point. At what point does the shark come out? So speaking with Abdullah and then becoming this persona of Vampiro, it was always about less is more. Be authentic outside of wrestling.”
For more, visit Wrestling Writing Substack. Get StrangleMania tickets here.
