Hernandez is a known name amongst long-time IMPACT Wrestling and TNA fans. A former five-time champion, he is a graduate of Shawn Michaels’ old Texas Wrestling Academy school. At a very sculpted 6’2 and 285lbs, SuperMex had power and surprising agility and looked like a possible superstar for the company at one point.
Let’s see if Hernandez could’ve been salvaged as a strong singles star during his initial run in TNA.
Hernandez’s 2009 Solo Run
SuperMex had been in TNA throughout the early 2000s but he became a regular talent with them in 2006 as part of the Latin American Xchange or LAX teaming with Homicide with Konnan as their manager. After LAX went on a brief hiatus in 2009, TNA attempted to run him as a singles competitor.
And why not? Hernandez always had a powerhouse menace to him and he could go in the ring—especially in a tag team—why not see how things percolate in the singles ranks? He won a World title match in the “Feast of Fired” match and figured that an episode of IMPACT was a good time to cash it in against Sting.
Of course, since Sting was running with the Main Event Mafia, Hernandez defeated The Icon by DQ. He would get another shot but neck surgery put that off for a moment. In his second shot at the title, World Elite killed that opportunity for him. His last unsuccessful run for a belt was the ill-fated TNA Global title which Eric Young ended up winning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCR5jVgGc9Y
Hernandez would go on to have a decent but somewhat drawn-out storyline with Matt Morgan. It was only drawn out because SuperMex was wrestling for a couple of months in Mexico otherwise this feud would’ve been done and dusted by March or April 2010. When he finally finished up in Mexico, he was moved into the new Mexican America faction.
Salvaging Hernandez
Honestly, this dude was very good as part of a tag team. I would say it would’ve been better for him and Homicide to just be TNA’s long-running, dominant tag threat for a year or two longer before moving him into a singles role. It’s not that he needed more seasoning or anything—by the time that LAX ended he had a bit over ten years of mileage on his wrestling boots.
However, Hernandez needed more of a character as babyface SuperMex. TNA never really tried that hard in adding something special to that SuperMex character. While in LAX, it wasn’t necessary. He was a Latino gangsta who came to fight and collect his ducats. Konnan did 95-percent of the talking—and that’s being extremely generous to the team.
On his own, he either needed a mouthpiece—which is a bit meh for a babyface—or be allowed to actually find his way on the mic. Outside of that, he was fine in the ring for the heavyweights in the company and had been in TNA long enough that he could work decently with the X-Division talent.
If anything, TNA probably should’ve gone the Samoa Joe route with him and had him be an X-Division threat first before running him in the World title picture. That’s only because TNA didn’t have a secondary title that wasn’t heavily associated with their faster talent.
I believe that Hernandez was salvageable between 2009-2010 as a singles wrestler but the character issue was the hurdle for this guy to clear.
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