If I had to do a top five of WCW wrestlers, La Parka, now known as L.A Park, wouldn’t be on that list. Mind you, now he’s in my top ten all-time list since he’s now a bulky, heavyweight brawler. Young La Parka looked cool as hell in WCW but he didn’t stand out among his fellow luchadors skill-wise. His greatest weapon was his charisma and personality.
La Parka in WCW
That isn’t to say that L.A Park wasn’t skilled. The guy had some agility, could do dives, chain wrestle a bit, and knew what he could do among his peers. However, his peers from AAA were working faster and doing all the dives. La Parka was like El Dandy or Silver King, there to establish order of some sort.
Unless you watched the first hour of WCW and Saturday Night, you pretty much missed La Parka in action. While everyone else did all the cool stuff that had you going “Wow”, Park mainly brought the entertainment factor and that is what really got him remembered by fans.
He was involved in the DDP vs. Savage feud in a guest role, where DDP took his costume and lumped up the Macho Man. The actual Park would be beaten by Savage the following week, ending his involvement.
Other than that, WCW didn’t do much with La Parka. They put him in matches and tried to give him a voice-over gimmick which didn’t last long. I mean, at least they made an attempt since he did stand out compared to the other luchadors in that he had a character of some sort.
Salvaging L.A Park
So, could this guy have been salvaged in WCW? If his brawling shined in the late 90s-early 00s, I would’ve said put him in the Hardcore division or have him mill about the TV title picture. Both would’ve been safe enough as one is just overbooked brawling and mayhem and the other was more in-ring and competition-focused.
He may have needed to do a promo here and there but giving him a catchphrase that he could say in Spanish and then English—like Konnan did at times—then have him answer every interview with it, could’ve worked.
Also, a comedic gimmick where he doesn’t speak English, understands it, and constantly becomes enraged at interviewers and everyone else would’ve been some sports entertainment wackiness.
It wouldn’t have pushed him up the roster but this period of L.A Park wasn’t someone I could see in the upper reaches of WCW. He was a midcard presence who could’ve been WCW’s R-Truth or Funaki—only wrestling regularly.
Now, if we had L.A Park, now? Skull Captain with the added weight, business experience in the business, and just his attitude of being a badass boss who is hard to deal with? Yes, I could see old L.A Park creeping up the roster in WCW probably threatening the U.S title picture and teaming up with another irritable veteran.
OG La Parka was definitely salvageable in WCW and the company saw something in him—with his mask on—that wasn’t seen in most of the other luchadors.
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