El Pablo

Background
El Pablo was born in a small village near the naval city of Portsmouth on the South Coast of England in the spring of 1987. The village was, as you might expect, not the most "lively" of places, full mostly of old people. As a result, most of the kids who lived there - El Pablo included - spent most of their time hanging around on street corners, and - according to El Pablo - "jumping off really high things".

The other thing the kids enjoyed was wrestling, with unofficial "shows" being held in various backgardens around the village. When competing, El Pablo took inspiration from pro-wrestling superstars like The Hardy Boyz, X-Pac, Rob Van Dam and Essa Rios, combining their high-flying antics with his own early forays into daredevilism.

Sussex Pro Wrestling
By the time he was 15, El Pablo was fully committed to a career in Pro-wrestling, and enroled himself in a local wrestling school. This eventually led to him joining his first promotion, the locally-based Sussex Pro-Wrestling. Even at such a young age, El Pablo quickly established himself as an able competitor, becoming the promotion's Light-Heavyweight Champion just after his 16th birthday.

El Pablo remained in SPW for 2 years, eventually winning the Light-Heavyweight Title a total of 4 times. He also won the Tag Team Titles once, teaming up with childhood friend Davey J under the title "King And Country", and twice competed for the Intercontinental Championship, but was defeated both times.

Five Star Federation
In 2005, at the age of 18, El Pablo was contacted by US-based promotion The Five Star Federation with regard to being offered a contract to wrestle for them. El Pablo accepted, and made his USA debut at the promotion's Mayday Madness Pay-Per-View, defeating former World Champion Marko Maverick in a hardcore match. The result was regarded as the start of a new era within the company, and El Pablo soon established himself as one of the biggest stars in the company with a string of impressive victories and performances over the following weeks and months.

In the summer of 2006, El Pablo won his first Five Star (World) Title, defeating "Red Hot" Lee Boston and The Fear in a three-way table match. This match, as well as earning El Pablo his first of 3 Five Star Titles, also marked the beginning of the feud that came to define El Pablo's FSF career.

"Red Hot" Lee Boston, the man who had lost the title as a result of El Pablo's victory, took the defeat extremely badly, and began attacking El Pablo at every opportunity. This resulted in a series of intense and at times brutal matches, both title and non-title, including table matches, hardcore matches, cage matches, and even a Hell In A Cell match. The feud marked the pinnacle of the FSF, and as a result El Pablo started referring to himself as "The Five Star Superstar".

In August 2007, With both men apparently refusing to let it go, the decision was made for the two to face off in what came to be regarded as the greatest match in the promotion's existance, the ominously-named "Sent To Hell" match. The basic principle was the same as a buried-alive match, dump your opponent in a hole constructed in a pile of earth to win the match. However, for this match, the "grave" was surrounded by a ring of fire, giving the impression of a "doorway to hell". After a greulling half an hour, El Pablo finally gained the victory, countering a cross-body attempt by Boston and chokeslamming him into the pit, finally putting an end to their rivalry.

Combat Zone Wrestling
Unfortunately, the end of the Five Star Federation was also near, with the company losing money and struggling to compete with competition from other promotions. However, El Pablo's career was saved from uncertainty when he was offered a place on the roster of upcoming promotion Combat Zone Wrestling. El Pablo accepted the offer, and in January 2008 he made his first appearance as a CZW member, carrying the Five Star Title belt over his shoulder.

El Pablo made his CZW debut in the Rumble For The Gold at the first ever edition of CZW Warzone. Entering at number 22 out of 23 participants, El Pablo assisted in the group elimination of Andrew Arashavin, then eliminated “Irish” Ian Chadwick after a Pablo Slam, before being eliminated himself by JA Sawyer, just one elimination away from the second stage, a four-way cage match for the CZW World Heavyweight Championship, which was ultimately won by The Zodiac Thrilla.

The “PX” Era: CZW X-Champion
The week after the Rumble, El Pablo was placed in a No Holds Barred, triple-threat match against Ian Chadwick and JA Sawyer for the CZW X-Championship. After an extremely violent, bloody match – in which El Pablo took a staple to the head from JA Sawyer, before gaining his revenge by piledriving his assailant through a burning table – El Pablo pinned Ian Chadwick, courtesy of a Pablo Splash off a ladder through two tables, becoming the first ever CZW X-Champion.

The Birth Of AMP XTC
The following week, El Pablo teamed up with World Heavyweight Champion The Zodiac Thrilla, Intercontinental Champion Ace King, and the recently-debuted Matt Stylez, in an 8-man tag match against Jesse Montana, Mack Beaudin, Caleb Walker and Adam Swinger. El Pablo’s team won the match, thanks to a Blackjack Bomb followed by a Pablo Splash on Adam Swinger, but their celebrations were cut short by Jesse Montana and Mack Beaudin attacking their opponents with steel chairs, signalling the formation of The Upstarts stable.

El Pablo would gain some retribution for this attack at CZW’s first ever Pay-Per-View, Evil Intentions, which took place the week after the 8-man-tag match. After retaining his X-Title in a Falls-Count-Anywhere match against Adam Swinger (forcing Swinger into retirement in the process), El Pablo made an appearance during Ace King’s Intercontinental Title defence against Mack Beaudin, hitting the challenger with a Steel Elbow on the outside, and ultimately costing Beaudin the match.

The feud carried over to the following Warzone, where Pablo and Ace took on Mack and Jesse in another tag-team main event. This time, The Upstarts came out on top, although it was an illegal brass knuckle shot by Mack to the head of El Pablo that earnt them the victory. After the match, Matt Stylez – who had been color-commentating – entered the ring, and assisted Ace and Pablo in attacking The Upstarts, before officially announcing the formation of their own stable, known as AMP XTC.

In an apparent attempt to bring an early revolution to the rivalry, then-Commissioner Michael Farley booked El Pablo in a singles match against Mack, with the special stipulation that any member of The Upstarts of AMP XTC who interfered would be suspended indefinitely. Once again, El Pablo lost the match in controversial fashion, having suffered constant distraction and disruption from Mack’s valet The Lovely Zoe throughout the match. Things looked set to get ever worse afterwards, when “The Hardcore Master” Tim Timmons came out to the ring, seemingly with the intention of attacking a still-recovering El Pablo. The X-Champion managed to fight back though, leaving Timmons lying unconscious in the ring after a devastating Steel Elbow. However, Timmons would achieve his aim the following week, attacking El Pablo backstage and throwing him through a glass window, before declaring himself the “true X-Champion”.

The Greenhouse Match
In retaliation to Timmons’ attack, El Pablo agreed to put the X-Title belt on the line at Broken Hearts, Broken Bones, CZW’s second Pay-Per-View. The stipulation for the match would involve four glass tables being set up around the outside of the ring, with various panes of glass also being made available for each contestant to use against their opponent. Dubbed “The Greenhouse Match”, BHBB would be the first time such a stipulation had been seen in CZW.

The match itself would prove to be one of the most violent in the promotion’s short history to that point, and at the end of it all – despite spending the latter stages of the match blinded by a combination of blood and glass – El Pablo pinned Timmons to once again retain the X-Title.

El Pablo continued his reign the following week as CZW went worldwide, defeating Death Row member Boris, before teaming up with AMP XTC stablemate Ace King in Japan to compete to become the number one contenders to the CZW Tag Team Titles, held at the time by fellow AMP XTC member (and then-World Heavyweight Champion) Matt Stylez, who had been forced to carry them solo since his partner Zodiac Thrilla was put on the shelf by Jesse Montana at Broken Hearts, Broken Bones.

However, in a shocking twist, Commissioner Farley stripped Stylez of the Tag Titles as the show went on air, meaning that whoever won the Tag Team Tandem that night would be crowned the new champions. El Pablo and Ace – now known collectively as The Five Star Gamblers – were one of the four teams who helped start proceedings, and lasted all the way to the final showdown, where they were defeated by hometown debutants The Dragon Society, after Matt Stylez appeared to accidentally strike Ace in the head with one of the title belts. As if to rub further salt in the wounds, Farley appeared on the stage after the match, and announced that El Pablo and Ace King would have to face each other the following week on Warzone, with the winner becoming the number one contender for Matt Stylez’s World Heavyweight Championship.

And so, on the next edition of Warzone, El Pablo and Ace fought each other for the first time, with El Pablo narrowly coming out on top, and being named the new number one contender. After the match, however, The Upstarts renewed their rivalry with AMP XTC, attacking The Gamblers in the ring, before handcuffing the pair of them to the ring ropes. Ace’s “friend” Ruthless Aggression came out to assist XTC, but found herself the victim of a brutal beatdown, with Ace and Pablo powerless to help her. Matt Stylez made a somewhat belated attempt to rescue his stablemates, along with Ronnie McNeil and “Special” Ed Covey, although confusion followed when Jesse Montana informed Matt that, “The Upstarts did their part, now it’s time for you to do yours”.

The Demise Of AMP XTC
After a bit of convincing from Stylez, El Pablo and Ace shrugged off the incidents in Sheffield as just more Upstarts mind-games, and “The Five Star Superstar” took on “The Serial Thrilla” at Road To Glory, in his first CZW World Heavyweight Championship shot. After a fantastic match, watched intently from the sidelines by Commissioner Farley, Matt Stylez shocked the entire CZW when he turned on El Pablo, striking him in the head with a steel chair, before viciously beating him after the match with a sledgehammer.

Despite the horrific injuries suffered, El Pablo somehow made it to Warzone a week later, where he teamed up with CZW President Alan Fiscus to take on Jesse Montana and Matt Stylez in the main event. However, El Pablo once again found himself on the receiving end of Matt’s sledgehammer, although his team did win the match thanks to Fiscus apparently threatening to fire Stylez if he didn’t allow Jesse to be pinned.

El Pablo would finally gain retribution for Stylez’s actions the following week in Moscow, where he defeated the World Heavyweight Champion in a vicious street fight. In a strange twist, the two of them competed on the same team 7 days later alongside Impaler in a six-man “Odd Couple” match, taking on the team of Rave, Kris Kash and Caleb Walker. El Pablo’s team lost the match after Ace King interfered and attacked Stylez, revealing his former stablemate as the one who assaulted him backstage in Beijing two weeks previous, causing him to miss a week of action.

El Pablo returned to X-Title action the following week, defeating Kris Kash and Rave in a Flaming Tables, Ladders and Chairs match at the No Remorse Pay-Per-View. That same night, Upstarts member Jesse Montana was named as the temporary president of CZW by Derek Damage, a move that – unbeknownst to everyone at the time – would lead to a historic edition of Warzone the following week.

XTC: The Re-Birth
At the start of the show in Montreal, El Pablo and Ace King made their way out to the ring, and announced to everyone that all hopes of an AMP XTC reunion were in vain. Mass disappointment was soon followed by mass hysteria, however, as the two revealed that the stable had in fact been re-born as Team XTC, and introduced new recruits Ruthless Aggression, “Special” Ed Covey and Loki to the world.

Later that night, El Pablo defeated the increasingly-unpopular Rave to retain the X-Title once again, this time in a Sea Of Tacks match. The highlight of the evening, however, came when the reinvented Team XTC interrupted Jesse Montana’s Appreciation Ceremony, dressed as kangaroo, a grizzly bear, and a pantomime horse, and presented the President with a gift in the form of a larger-than-life copy of “Can You Get It Up-Starts?”, a DVD/cult phenomenon that Team XTC had been using to poke fun at The Upstarts for the last couple of weeks. Jesse was to have the last laugh, however, as he booked a triple-threat match between Ace King, El Pablo and Matt Stylez at that month’s May Massacre Pay-Per-View. Whoever won would have the choice of holding either the World Heavyweight Title or the X-Title, with the other being vacated.

In a sort of preview to that encounter, Jesse also ordered The Five Star Gamblers to compete against each other the following week on Warzone, with Matt Stylez as the special-guest referee. After some “convincing” from Stylez, Ace won the match via a Blackjack Bomb, although Stylez had the final say, decimating Ace, El Pablo and Ed Covey (who had come out during the first stages of the attack) with his sledgehammer, assisted by his new friend Leo Crow. This attack led to two tag-team matches in as many weeks, first with the male members of Team XTC defeating Stylez, Crow and Mack Beaudin, followed by El Pablo and Ed Covey taking on Stylez and Crow in a match which ended in a no contest.

May Massacre: The End Of An Era
The following week saw May Massacre hit the world’s TV screens. Unfortunately for El Pablo, an incredibly intense, emotional main event saw him stripped of his X-Title when Matt Stylez pinned Ace King to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. The defeat marked the end of a title reign that lasted a total of 133 days, at the time the longest title reign in CZW history, a record that would stand until Eddie Rowan surpassed it with the same title on the 21st November 2008.

Brand Extension
May Massacre also marked the end of CZW’s first era as a single show promotion, as the company’s secondary show, Assault, was given a prime-time slot, with the roster divided between the two. El Pablo was drafted to Warzone, along with the rest of Team XTC, and in the first edition of the show since the extension, The Five Star Gamblers competed against The Samoan Wrecking Crew, and the teams of Dusty Davis and Buck Evans, and All-American Nightmare and Jacob Havok, to determine who would become the first holders of the new North American Tag Team Titles. The Gamblers finished victorious, with Ace pinning Jamal of the SWC thanks to assistance from El Pablo.

The following week, El Pablo teamed with Ruthless Aggression, losing to Buck Evans and Brenda Vixen in an intergender tag match. However, El Pablo got back to winning ways the very next week, when he and Ace defeated The Samoan Wrecking Crew for the second time, this time in a table match. The hatrick was completed at the Summer Showdown Pay-Per-View, when The Gamblers retained their titles in CZW’s first ever Extreme Crazy-Eights match. However, the night ended badly for El Pablo, when he appeared to be kidnapped by CZW “diva” Jena Cyde. This led to the next big stage of his CZW career.

The Whole Jena Thing
The week after Summer Showdown, El Pablo was booked to take on Leo Crow in singles competition. However, as Crow was warming up in the ring, El Pablo failed to show on the stage. Instead, the Combatron cut to video footage of a boiler room, showing El Pablo bound by chains. After a few moments, Jena Cyde appeared, and announced to the watching CZW audience that she and El Pablo were to marry!

El Pablo, obviously, was not too thrilled by this announcement, and made his feelings clear the following week, when he appeared after Jena Cyde’s Womens Four-Way match, assaulting his fiancée and challenging her to a ladder match at the “…And Justice For All” Pay-Per-View. If Jena won, El Pablo would agree to become her husband. However, if El Pablo won, the engagement would be called off, and Jena would have to stay at least 100 feet away from him at all times.

El Pablo made his in-ring return in Oklahoma a week later, as The Five Star Gamblers retained their North American Tag Titles against the team of Nigrescence and Thanatos. After the match, however, El Pablo and Ace found themselves the victims of an eerie revenge attack by Thanatos, that ended with the two of them laying in a pool of blood in the centre of the ring.

El Pablo didn’t compete on the next edition of Warzone, and so his next match was the high-stakes ladder match against Jena Cyde with both marriage and freedom on the line. The match was marred by repeated interference, with all three members of Jena’s immediate family beating down on El Pablo, as a means of ensuring he went through with the wedding. However, each time an XTC member (and the Orange-Haired host of “Kicked In The Nuts”) came out to assist, and it looked as though El Pablo was set to earn his freedom, until Ed’s brother Matt Covey interfered, announcing his transfer from Assault to Warzone by handcuffing El Pablo to the ropes, allowing Jena Cyde to pick up the win and seal the Five Star Superstar’s fate.

The following week saw the “Tribute To The Troops” show, and the start of CZW’s inaugural King Of Combat tournament. El Pablo was drawn to face Rob Wright in the first round, but wound up on the losing end after interference from an unknown assailant in a Michael Myers mask. However, the night was a good one for Team XTC, who revealed Krimzon Blaze and Shawn Waters – collectively known as Fire And Ice – as their new members.

El Pablo lost again a week later, this time in a ladder match for the TV Title, and was assaulted after the match by Matt Covey and Leo Crow, who had also been participants, along with Rob Wright and “Michael Myers”, who revealed himself to be none other than former CZW President Alan Fiscus. This moment saw the formation of the Anarchy Rising stable, and also set the stage for Fiscus and Covey challenging The Five Star Gamblers for their Tag Titles at the Hatewave Pay-Per-View.

In a set-up to that match, The Gamblers were booked to team up with Ronnie McNeil against Covey, Fiscus and Crow on the following Warzone. El Pablo’s bad luck continued, however, as Ronnie McNeil betrayed his team-mates midway through, costing them the match. To make matters worse, The Gamblers lost their titles at Hatewave, thanks once again to interference from Matt Stylez.

El Pablo’s next appearance was two weeks later on Warzone, when he suffered another defeat, this time to Alan Fiscus, thanks to interference from both Sydney Vicious and Stephanie. He then looked to regain what kick-started his CZW career in the first place, competing in a hardcore battle royal for the number one contendership to the X-Title. Once again though, he came up short, being eliminated by Matt Stylez before watching Jacob Havok pick up a surprise victory.

The following week, at the Extreme Intervention Pay-Per-View, El Pablo finally walked down the aisle for his wedding to Jena Cyde, accompanied by his self-appointed best man, Matt Covey. However, just as he looked set to “kiss the bride”, El Pablo stunned everyone when he and Ed Covey forced Matt to kiss “The Beast” instead, making him the unwitting groom instead of El Pablo!

This seemed to give El Pablo the boost he needed, and he won his first match since suffering Thanatos’ voodoo attack the next week, defeating “Flawless” Frank Finch. He then teamed up with “Special” Ed Covey again, defeating Matt Covey and Leo Crow in what was intended to be Ed’s last ever CZW match. The following week, El Pablo competed in a battle royal against Eric Collum, Ronnie McNeil and Big Nasty, with the final two remaining contestants being added to the Stylez-Montana match at Horrorcore for the World Heavyweight Championship. El Pablo eliminated Eric Collum, then assisted McNeil in the elimination of Big Nasty, booking his place in the title match. However, he was unable to celebrate right away, as Ronnie dropped him with a “Flawless” after the match. This led to a singles match between the two on the first ever edition of CZW Overdrive the following week, which El Pablo narrowly won with a victory roll.

World Heavyweight Champion
At Horrorcore, El Pablo, Jesse Montana, Matt Stylez and Ronnie McNeil competed in a Monsters Ball match for the World Heavyweight Championship, having been kept in isolation without food and water for 24 hours. After a hard-fought contest, El Pablo hit a top-rope Blackjack Bomb onto Matt Stylez (in tribute to Ace King, who had been on hiatus since The Gamblers lost their Global Tag Team Titles), thereby picking up the win and finally becoming the 5th different CZW World Heavyweight Champion at the third attempt. However, he didn’t get a chance to celebrate with his belt, as defeated champion Jesse Montana stole it in a desperate bid to keep it in his possession. Jesse eventually made his way to a corporate box, where he goaded El Pablo briefly, before being pushed by an unknown assailant and falling 20ft to the floor below. El Pablo’s victory also meant that he remained the longest-reigning champion in CZW history at that point, with Jesse only a week or so from overtaking him when the match took place. The other nearest challenger to that crown – Intercontinental Champion Maynard O’Toole – also saw his reign end just short of the record that same night, when he was defeated by Karl “The Jackal” Jackson.

In his first match since becoming World Heavyweight Champion, El Pablo faced off against the new Intercontinental Champion on Overdrive. However, the match was abandoned midway through, when a bitter O’Toole interfered, attacking both El Pablo and The Jackal, and signalling his intention to challenge for El Pablo’s newly-won title.

However, it was Ronnie McNeil who provided El Pablo with his first title defence, challenging him the following week. El Pablo narrowly came away with the victory, but once again found himself on the receiving end of an O’Toole beatdown after the match had finished.

The next week, El Pablo faced off against X-Champion Eddie Rowan, in a match that would decide whether Eddie Rowan would overtake El Pablo as the longest-reigning champion in CZW history or not. In an historic match, Eddie Rowan picked up the victory after interference once again from O’Toole, this time shocking El Pablo with a taser. An all-out brawl ensued, with even Ronnie McNeil getting involved, until Jesse Montana broke it up with his first appearance since his fall via video-link, and announced that El Pablo would defend his title against both O’Toole and McNeil at the Collateral Damage Pay-Per-View. That match saw El Pablo mark his first PPV victory as World Heavyweight Champion, pinning McNeil after a Pablo Slam, despite being hit with an Opiate from O’Toole in-between.

After the match, Matt Covey and Eddie Rowan – Rowan having joined Matt Covey’s stable earlier in the evening – came down and attacked El Pablo, along with Big Nasty, who revealed himself to be yet another new recruit to the stable now known as The Whole Damn Show. The situation then escalated when Eric Collum, Gregory Grantham and The Jackal appeared, attacking The WDS and administering their own beatdown on the World Heavyweight Champion.

At the start of the following week’s Overdrive, Collum, Grantham and The Jackal made their way out to the ring to explain their actions. Before long, they were interrupted by The Whole Damn Show, as CZW looked set to find itself in the grips of another stable war. This was confirmed by the appearance of Team XTC, who stated that they too would be taking part in any battle for dominance that might occur. Later that night, El Pablo was forced to team with Ronnie McNeil again, this time against the team of The Jackal and Mortius. El Pablo had stated beforehand that he was suspicious of McNeil, and these suspicions were confirmed when Ronnie allowed himself to be pinned softly by The Jackal. Enraged, El Pablo attacked Ronnie, but soon found himself on the receiving end of yet another post-match beatdown, as Ronnie revealed himself to be the newest member of “The Unnamed Stable”.

Team XTC looked to gain some form of retribution a week later, when El Pablo and Krimzon Blaze took on The Jackal and Eric Collum, and Matt Covey and Eddie Rowan, in a TLC match. However, Blaze was destroyed by a piledriver from the apron to the concrete by The Jackal, and El Pablo was hit with an Aerial Revolution off a ladder through a table from Collum, a move which ultimately led to the pinfall that ended the match.

Finishers

 * Pablo Slam (Sitdown Side-Slam Spinebuster)


 * Pablo Splash (Inverted Corkscrew Senton)


 * Steel Elbow (Elbow Drop With Steel Chair)

Signature Moves


 * Triple-Jump Moonsault


 * Tightrope Walk to Clothesline

Entrance Music

 * Been Training Dogs by The Cooper Temple Clause (Singles)


 * Writing’s On The Wall by The Tea Party (Five-Star Gamblers)


 * Guerrilla Radio by Rage Against The Machine (With Team XTC)


 * Whose Fist Is This Anyway? by Prong (With AMP XTC)

Accomplishments

 * CZW World Heavyweight Champion (x1)


 * CZW X-Champion (x1)


 * CZW Global Tag Team Champion (x1, w/Ace King)


 * CZW North-American Tag Team Champion (x1, w/Ace King)

Move Set

 * Tornado DDT


 * Cross-body


 * Enziguri


 * Flying Head Scissors


 * Monkey Flip


 * Top-rope Leg Drop


 * Split-legged Moonsault


 * Twist Of Fate


 * Boston Crab


 * Plancha


 * Rolling Thunder


 * Super Sunset-flip Powerbomb


 * Running Suicide Front-flip


 * Baseball Slide (Opponent in Tree Of Woe)


 * Missile Dropkick


 * Straighjacket Neckbreaker


 * Spinebuster


 * Senton Bomb


 * Sitout Jawbreaker