Pro wrestler Vinnie Massaro found his 'WrestleMania moment' in Japan, shares love for building sport's future

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 making it to the top promotions Japan has to offer. He’s been a mainstay on the independents and is helping to train and wrestle those on the come up in West Coast Pro, Pandemonium Pro Wrestling and elsewhere.

While he understands that the dream of reaching WWE or All Elite Wrestling (AEW) may be dashed, he told Fox News Digital he’s fallen in love with helping the younger generation grow as professional wrestlers.

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"Honestly, the dream is not WWE, the dream is not AEW. Those dreams have kind of gone. I realize that I’m not young," he said. "I’ve reached that stage and that age where nobody is going to hire me as a professional wrestler. But there are other things like training. I love teaching young people how to wrestle. I love helping out in the back. I love doing agenting and that kind of stuff. To me, that’s a better outcome for me.

"Ten years from now, people may be like, ‘Oh you know Vinnie Massaro, he used to be a wrestler.’ You’d be like, ‘Oh I kinda saw him but he’s a good trainer. He knows how to teach people, he’s a good agent and he knows how to do that stuff.’ So, I think, eventually, that’s what’s going to end 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 in the independent circuit, I’ll be happy."

Massaro said the dream, in the first place, was never to get to WWE or World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He wanted to be on 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 started training, Massaro turned his attention to Japan and performing at the famed Korakuen Hall.

"But after I started training, the main thing I wanted to do was wrestle in Japan," he said. "My favorite wrestler was (Mitsuharu) Misawa and I was like, I want to meet Misawa, hopefully, one day, I want to wrestle Misawa and I’d like to wrestle for All Japan Pro Wrestling and then when he started (Pro Wrestling) Noah, when it was at Korakuen Hall, I wrestled for Noah. And I got to wrestle Misawa. I’ve wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling and I’ve wrestled for Pro Wrestling Noah at Korakuen Hall. I tagged with his former tag team partner – (Yoshinari Ogawa).

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"So to me, yeah, ‘What about your WrestleMania moment?’ I don’t even care about the WrestleMania moment. Being at Korakuen Hall, wrestling for Pro Wrestling Noah, being on my first Japanese tour, my first Japanese wrestling match and looking down at the mat and it’s ‘All Japan Pro Wrestling,’ the logo that I’ve seen so many times at Korakuen Hall, those are my highlights. Getting a chance to wrestle 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, it’s the reason 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 have trained from day one, literally, they’re like, ‘I’ve never done anything. I’m here, please teach me how to wrestle, and the fact that those students after I’ve trained them and taught them everything from their very first bump and now they’re wrestling for Korakuen Hall, like Miko Alana. She came with me, she came to the school and was like, ‘I’ve never done any of this before in my life,’ and I taught her how to roll, I taught her how to bump, I taught her how to do moves and she was just on the Monday Magic pay-per-view at Korakuen Hall that … People are like, ‘Oh, Vinnie, you never made it,’ I’m like, that’s bulls---. To me, that’s making it."

Massaro admitted that his skills in the ring are limited to hitting hard and showing his strength in the ring. A Spanish Fly off the top rope was probably never going to happen.

He said he could have gone down two paths. 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 styles of wrestling and performed all over the world.

"To me, I’d rather be a Terry Funk," he told Fox News 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 to me, you could just do one thing and keep doing it and if you fail that’s on you, but I tried a lot of different things. It’s not lucky if you just keep going."

Soon, Massaro will get to tag with 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 Sept. 5 in Phoenix, Arizona.

"I’m very excited because I grew up watching a lot of the AAA and Lucha Libre and CMLL and Blue Panther one of the few ones that you recognize and you always saw his match," he told Fox News Digital. "My first time watching Lucha Libre was Worlds Collide, of course, he was there and he played a big part … Getting a chance to wrestle against 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 have me tagging with Okumura, somebody 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 awesome on the other side, Blue Panther. But also on a grand aspect, I’d like to say I’m very proud I’m a big part of Pandemonium Pro Wrestling."