The Sierra Wrestling All-Stars Thread, CRITICAL Edition

Inside Wrasslin’: Thank you for coming in and having this sit-down interview with us. You’re facing Samael at Cresce-

El Rey Dorado: First of all, fuck you, gringo. There. That’s called “setting the tone.” Now, what do you want to know?

IW: 2019 marked three years of Los Diablos in SWA. Do you have any reflections on your faction’s 2019?

ERD: What’s that supposed to mean, man? Every year is great for Los Diablos. We wrestle big matches, we make mucho dinero, and we punk out little bitches in the ring.

IW: Well about that, it would seem as if Los Diablos has mostly been away from the title scene in 2019. Is that something you hope to correct in 2020?

ERD: laughs This is that hard-hitting journalism I hear about, yeah? You trying to piss me off, ese? Okay, okay, maybe El Rey Dorado didn’t hold gold in SWA in 2019. But Aguijon Tachibana, Leticia Fujioka, and Cerise were all in big title matches this year, man, for the Aftermath and Tag-Team Championships.

IW: Matches, I would note, they lost.

ERD: Now I know you’re trying to piss me off. What did I just say, ese? Wrestle big matches, make a bunch of money. Yeah, the biggest money goes to un campeón, but those title matches? They pay big. And in 2019, marks were paying good money to see Los Diablos, unlike our “champ.” You look at the numbers, man. Ticket sales are higher when Los Diablos are on the card. So it’s not that we’re looking to make a bigger mark in 2020, it’s that if SWA is smart, they will feature Los Diablos more in 2020, and everyone makes more money.

IW: That seems as good a segue as any. You have a lot of history personally with Samael Tangaroa. How did you two meet?

ERD: That would’ve been back in… 2012? Los Diablos had already started in 2010 with me and Fabio, and then Aguijon joining up in 2011. Those were the days, man. Tearing it up all over Baja and Sonora.
Anyway, Sam. So in 2012 we’re working in some shitty little town in Sonora and the promoter comes to me and says he has this guy he wants us to work with. And there’s this kid; big kid, tall, in this dumbass orange singlet. I mean he’s the same age as me but fuck him he’s a kid. And right away me and Fabio are like “Are you fucking kidding us” but the promoter is being a dick about it like “Look I paid a lot of money for this kid; his cousin is a big name in the US and if you don’t work with him I just won’t pay you.”

IW: Were you at all familiar with his cousin, Chris? (Ed. Note: For our younger readers, Chris “Tank” Tangaroa was a minor MMA star in the mid-90’s and worked a brief stint as a “Ringside Enforcer” for NWPW.)

ERD: Fuck no, man. I was born in 1990. That pendejo was washed up before I was 10.

IW: And how long did you work with Samael in Mexico?

ERD: Well first of all he was just Sam then. All this “Samael” stuff is just a bunch of bullshit. But we worked together from 2012 to about 2015. At first we just thought “We’ll just ditch this loser once we leave town,” but the fact was the crowds were reacting to him and me when we would come out together, these two huge dudes, and it made us a lot of money.

IW: And why did you stop working with him?

ERD: Sam likes to tell people how, when he was working in Mexico, he had a gun pulled on him one time. He doesn’t tell the rest of the story, though. We were working a show in Tijuana, and it was a rowdy fuckin’ crowd and a lot of people were drunk. We were doing our entrance when some dickhead pulls out an old-ass service revolver and points it at Sam. And what does that little puta do? He just stands there, frozen, jaw hanging, eyes wide as dinner plates, staring at this drunken dumbass pointing a gun at him, about to pull the trigger. Bitch is lucky me and Fabio were there to tackle that dude because there wasn’t a security guard anywhere in a square mile. That was when I had enough. After the show, I told him, “You would never do for us what we just did for you. If I was depending on you to back me up if things got wild man, you would just stand there with your thumb up your ass. You’re a little punk bitch. Get the fuck out of here, and if I see your face around here ever again, I’m gonna break it.”

IW: Wow.

ERD: What I want you to understand: people try to say “Oh it’s wrestling; wrestlers pretend to have beef all the time.” I ain’t pretending shit, cabron. I fucking hate Sam Tangaroa. You can make that your headline.

IW: Wait, why did you come to SWA when Samael called you, then?

ERD: You been listenin’, man? I already told you twice: Mucho. Dinero. Besides, he thought he could play with us like puppets, man. It was worth it just to see the look on his punk-ass face when we jumped him.

IW: And what did you think when you first saw what Samael had become in SWA?

ERD: I thought the way I do now: He’s still a little punk bitch. Sam can hide his fear under as many tattoos and name changes and spoooky speeches as he wants. You look at his face when he’s doing what he does in the ring. When he hurts somebody, you look in his eyes. Those aren’t the eyes of a killer, man. That’s a scared little boy. Then there’s this “Brotherhood” of his. That’s not a Brotherhood. That’s a cult of personality, with Sam at the center. Now you see, Los Diablos, yeah. Hermanos. In Los Diablos, it’s mi casa, tu casa, and when we get together I’m bringing the tequila. Would Sam do that for anybody in his “Brotherhood?” Would Sam do that for anybody, period? No.

IW: Any final thoughts on your match with Samael at Crescendo?

ERD: Just like at the beginning of this interview, when I get into the ring, I set the tone. And the tone at Crescendo? It’s gonna be violent, ese. I’m taking the Openweight Title, yeah, but more importantly, I’m sending Sam Tangaroa back into the hole he crawled out of. Los Diablos estamos numero uno, cabron. And don’t you forget it.

If you look back over the last few years of SWA, we've heard this gun story from a few different angles now. Samael, Fabio, and El Rey Dorado all remember the incident differently, and they tell the story differently. To Samael, it was a moment that defined what the world of wrestling is to him, a violent and senseless hell. To Fabio, it confirmed to him that Samael was too much of a coward to be a member of Los Diablos. To El Rey, it was an implicit betrayal of the brotherhood of wrestling. Each of them had their own angle they were trying to push when telling the story, and none of them necessarily is telling the whole truth.

I wouldn't blame you for not remembering the previous mentions- Samael first mentioned the story back in 2016! Due to the format I use in SWA, those old promos are sadly lost to the shadows of history. I think, in a way, that reinforces the narrative, though- different people remember things differently, and there's no definitive document to go back to and reference. In-universe, the show never went to tape. Out of universe, the previous mentions are lost to various forum crashes and closures.

Which was the first time I ever captured and uploaded a full show for anything.

I originally uploaded all the matches to my YouTube account, unlisted, with forum links. But those links are very much long-since gone, and I hadn't thought about the show in years. Today, though, I remembered. As such, every match of FPCPP vs. SWA: Galaxy of Heroes is now public on my YouTube channel.

* And finally, when I want to say something about Fire Pro, edits, or running SWA, it will be in a spoiler tag. If you see me posting text in the main body of the thread outside of spoiler tags, you can safely assume I'm speaking "in-character" as a dedicated SWA fan and mark for unimportantguy the wrestler. In spoiler tags, I will more freely discuss my own experiences with the game, my booking decisions, etc. I do not require that other posters play along with this, but it's appreciated.