Jean-Pierre LaFitte was a short-term pirate gimmick used by current IMPACT Wrestling star and former ROH World champion PCO. Following the end of the Quebecers, the Jean-Pierre LaFitte gimmick was somewhat pre-New Generation in that it was still a very cartoonish gimmick but it was right at home in the New Generation because PCO could really go in the ring.
Personally, I loved the gimmick. The vignettes for him were well-done and I was looking forward to seeing him on television. Mind you, he didn’t have it on the mic back then, he could do just enough to get this character over.
I mean, it’s a pirate at a time when the upper reaches of the card only had room for a deadman and a gold-and-black weirdo. A pirate wasn’t going to be winning or seriously challenging for the Winged Eagle belt.
He would have an entertaining feud with Bret Hart which delivered some solid matches over the pirate stealing Hart’s jacket. Of course, he wasn’t long for WWE and left following booking disagreements involving The Kliq.
Salvaging Jean-Pierre LaFitte in WWE
Oh, there was no salvaging this gimmick at all. It was a gimmick for a particular time and technically it was about a decade late. I could see this being a long-running gimmick during Hulkamania as we had all kinds of odd and nefarious characters around. A pirate would not be out of place.
Of course, the wrestler PCO could’ve easily been salvaged as an extremely strong tag team competitor or as a solid threat at the European title and IC title level. The man is an ancient, freakish beast now but the guy was very talented and incredibly versatile across different styles for his size.
So, no the pirate gimmick wasn’t salvageable, it was a little dated when he got it and it would’ve totally been out of place during the Attitude Era.
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