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Pro wrestler Vinnie Massaro is a relative unknown to those who primarily dedicate their viewing experiences to what comes on their televisions and streaming services a few times a week.
Massaro has been in the ring for nearly three decades, starting in Hayward, California, and working his way up to the best promotions Japan has to offer. He has been a mainstay on the independents, helping to train and wrestle up-and-comers in West Coast Pro, Pandemonium Pro Wrestling and elsewhere.
While he understands that the dream of making it to WWE or All Elite Wrestling (AEW) can be crushed, he told Pakinomist Digital that he has fallen in love with helping the younger generation grow as professional wrestlers.
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Pro wrestler Vinnie Massaro brings the pain in the ring. (Provided to Pakinomist Digital)
“Honestly, the dream is not WWE, the dream is not AEW. Those dreams are kind of gone. I realize I’m not young,” he said. “I’ve reached the stage and the age where nobody’s going to hire me as a professional wrestler. But there are other things like training. I love teaching young people to wrestle. I love helping out in the back. I love doing agents and things like that. For me, it’s a better outcome for me.
“Ten years from now, people might think, ‘Oh, you know Vinnie Massaro, he used to be a wrestler.’ You’d think, ‘Oh, I saw him a bit, but he’s a good coach. He knows how to teach people, he’s a good agent and he knows how to do it.’ So I think ultimately that’s what ends up being my calling card. Even if it’s just being here at West Coast Pro, teaching the students at West Coast Pro and being a professional wrestler on the independent circuit, I’ll be happy.”
Massaro said that initially the dream was never to make it to WWE or World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He wanted to join Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) as the hardcore promotion was becoming popular in the Northeast. But that goal went sideways when WWE bought out ECW.
As he began training, Massaro turned his attention to Japan and performed at the famous Korakuen Hall.
“But after I started training, the main thing I wanted to do was to wrestle in Japan,” he said. “My favorite wrestler was (Mitsuharu) Misawa and I wanted to face Misawa, hopefully one day I want to wrestle Misawa and I want to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling and then when he started (Pro Wrestling) Noah when it was in Korakuen Hall I wrestled for Noah. And I got to wrestle for Wrestling in Japan and in Japan wrestled for Pro Wrestling Noah in Korakuen Hall I tagged with his former tag team partner – (Yoshinari Ogawa).
Vinnie Massaro on the top turnbuckle. (Provided to Pakinomist Digital)
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“So for me, yeah, ‘What about your WrestleMania moment?’ I don’t care about the WrestleMania moment. Being in Korakuen Hall, wrestling for Pro Wrestling Noah, being on my first Japanese tour, my first Japanese wrestling match and looking down on the mat and it’s ‘All Japan Pro Wrestling’, the logo that I’ve seen so many times in Korakuen Hall, those are my highlights. Getting a chance to fight at Arena Mexico, that’s my highlight. Getting a chance to wrestle at the ECW Arena, that was a big one for me because I grew up watching ECW.
“I loved ECW, that’s why I started wrestling. I stopped watching wrestling, but I got back into it because I started watching ECW. Now, honestly, I think the fact that I have students that I’ve trained from day one, literally, they’re like, “I’ve never done anything. I’m here, please teach me how I’ve taught them and the fact that they’ve wrestled from them, their very first bump, and now they’re fighting for Korakuen Hall, just like Miko Alana. She came with me, she came to school and said, ‘I’ve never done any of this before in my life,’ and I taught her to roll, I taught her to do moves, and she was just on Monday, where you haven’t done any of this. that,’ I’m like, that’s bulls— To me, that does it.”
Massaro admitted that his abilities in the ring are limited to hitting hard and showing his strength in the ring. A Spanish fly from the top was probably never going to happen.
He said he could have gone either way. He said he could have been Ole Anderson who was “set in his ways” or he could have been Terry Funk who adapted to different wrestling styles and performed all over the world.
“For me, I’d rather be a Terry Funk,” he told Pakinomist Digital. “I’ve gone to Japan and trained with them, with the Joshis I went to Marvelous Pro and went to train with Takumi (Iroha), I went to Lucha Libre and trained with Lady Apache. So for me, you could just do one thing and keep doing it and if you fail, it’s on you, but I tried a lot of different things. It’s not lucky if you just keep going.”
Vinnie Massaro is waiting to be tagged in. (Vinnie Massaro)
Soon, Massaro will get to tag Japanese wrestling star Shigeo Okumura as they go up against a team led by Lucha Libre legend Blue Panther.
Massaro, Okumura and Andrew Cass will take on Blue Panther, Jiah Jewel and Seabass Finn in a six-man tag team match at Pandemonium Pro’s End of Summer Event on September 5 in Phoenix, Arizona.
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“I’m very excited because I grew up watching a lot of AAA and Lucha Libre and CMLL and Blue Panther, one of the few you recognize and you’ve always seen his fight,” he told Pakinomist Digital. “My first time watching Lucha Libre was Worlds Collide, of course, he was there and he played a big part… To get a chance to fight Blue Panther, I don’t have too many bucket lists anymore of wrestlers,
“I don’t have a list, but Blue Panther is definitely on that list. They got me to tag with Okumura, someone who’s been doing this for so long. He’s basically like the guy that helped the guys from Japan be in CMLL. … It’s going to be cool to tag with Okumura and great on the other side, Blue Panther. But I’m also very proud to say that I’m very proud to say that I’m very proud. Pandemonium Pro Wrestling.”
