When I connect withVampiro over Zoom, we’re already on brand before the interview even begins. His camera won’t work. Settings are broken, logo showing, no face. The man who spent decades wrapping himself in darkness, ritual and theatricality is now literally a disembodied voice. Somehow, it fits.
We’re speaking ahead of what’s being billed as his final matchatJCW StrangleMania– a farewell wrapped in Juggalo chaos, underground mythology and punk spirit. It’s happening in Las Vegas, at a casino, with a crowd that has followed him through generations, evolutions and reinventions.
Physically, he’s hurting. Mentally, he’s buzzing. “My body is kind of a mess,” he admits. “I’m extremely limited on what I can do now, physically, I just can’t really, really do much, but my mind, I’m so excited.”That tension – between a battered body and a still-burning mind – runs through his entire story. As we talk, it becomes clear that this last match isn’t just about one more pop from the crowd. It’s about loyalty, ritual, culture and, maybe most of all, authenticity.
Walking Into the Last Dance
Ask Vampiro what fans can expect from his final JCW match at StrangleMania, and there’s no polished PR line, no delusion about what his body can take: “If they can get me out of the wheelchair and get me into the ring, that’s probably a highlight right there,” he laughs.
He knows what fans might want – one last “classic” Vampiro spectacle with fire, chaos and big bumps – but he’s brutally honest about what’s realistic. “It’s like a goodbye,” he says. “Do I… am I gonna pull out the rule book and do every wrestling move on the planet? No, I don’t think so. Am I gonna go in there and fucking be part of the crowd and have that fun? Yeah, of course.”
And then he describes the real game plan – the one his doctor, girlfriend and daughter would probably rather not hear: “Will the adrenaline make me do stupid things? Yes, of course. Am I going to hurt myself? Yeah, 100%. Is this logical? Does my girlfriend give me permission and my daughter? Fuck no. Is my doctor upset with me? 100%. Am I going to probably regret this? Yes, of course. I can’t wait.” If you want a visual of what that last walk to the ring looks like in his mind, he paints it perfectly: “I’m going to have probably a small bottle of Jägermeister, a bottle of Advil, some smelling salts, and my headphones playing punk rock full blast, and go out there and just fucking go.”
For all the jokes, for all the gallows humour about wheelchairs and broken bodies, there’s something deeply ritualistic about the way he talks about this match. It’s not just “one more booking” – it’s afarewell ceremony with people he considers family. “At this stage in the game, I’ve kind of said goodbye to Mexico,” he says. “To me, this is a great way to end – to share one more time that ritual of going in the ring.”
“This Is a Movement”: Why JCW Feels Like a Once-in-a-Lifetime Run
For all his travels –Mexico,Japan,WCW,Lucha Underground,MLW,TNA– Vampiro talks aboutJCW (Juggalo Championship Wrestling) with a kind of reverence usually reserved for world-title runs and sold-out stadiums. To him, this final match at StrangleMania isn’t a comedown. It’s theperfectstage.
“JCW has been so much more to me than wrestling. It’s a family thing. It’s a brotherhood thing,” he says: He’s seen every major era of modern wrestling, but what’s happening right now in JCW feels different – and crucially, alive. I tell him JCW reminds me of that same crackling, experimental energy that made Lucha Underground so exciting. He doesn’t hesitate. “No, you’re right on, actually. And I think, to your point, I think there’s a little bit more in JCW, and there’s a reason for that.”
For him, that reason is simple: ICP’s lore and the generational power of Juggalo culture. “There are parents that come with their kids, there are grandparents that come with their grandkids,” he explains. “There’s a whole new generation of people who are in their early 20s. I mean, we’re fucking 60 year old men that you know are coming out in full force, and they know everything.”
What used to be a cult warm-up for live music, has become a main event draw: “When we used to do JCW before the ICP shows, years ago, there’d be 20 people, 30 people, but now it’s fucking packed. And everybody who’s there is to see the wrestling and then see the show. They know the characters. They know the catch phrases. They bring signs, they’re wearing merch… It’s turned into something new.”
For Vampiro, that’s the magic: not one singular star, but theecosystem. “It’s safer and better to say I got my eye on the promotion,” he says when I ask if there’s a breakout talent he’s watching. “This is a whole movement that’s catching fire. So the fans make the show and the show make the fans.” He doesn’t want people tuning in to StrangleMania just to see him bow out. He wants them to see what JCW has become. “It’s not so much one character. It’s the storylines, the energy, the passion, the belonging to – that’s what you should watch.”
Violent J, ICP and the Punk Heart of StrangleMania
If JCW is a movement, Violent J is, in Vampiro’s eyes, the dangerously committed architect behind it – and the driving force behind this final match even happening. “There’s not a lot of people in the world who are more passionate about wrestling than Violent J,” he laughs. “He’s a pain in the ass about it.”
There’s a real admiration in the way he talks about J – not just as a musician or cult icon, but as a booker, a storyteller and a lifer. He tells a story that links his own punk upbringing, theSex Pistolsand ICP into one weird, inevitable line. When he signed his WCW contract, he picked up an issue ofCircus magazine because it had an interview with Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols. In the same magazine was a feature on ICP – and Jones had played on one of their records. Two days later, WCW told him: “You’re going to get to meet these guys in ICP.”
To Vampiro, ICP were never just “clown rappers”. They were the spiritual descendants of the very punk movement that shaped him. “I really think the ICP crew, everything is just like the Sex Pistols,” he says. “They created this underground movement. They got their group of fans. There’s a bunch of imitators… to me, it was just like the punk rock movement.”
So, when he calls this final JCW run an honour, it’s not lip service. It’s a full-circle moment. He talks about Violent J in almost martyr-like terms: “When I say everything, you know, sleepless nights, money out of his own pocket, fucking banging his head on the wall, on the phone all day, fighting with Vince Russo – ‘I want this, I like that’ kind of shit. It’s not easy. And to see him go through what he goes through… I can finally say it’s somebody surpassed me for sure.” Perhaps the clearest proof of J’s influence? “I mean, the fucking guy’s got me coming out of retirement to do one more match.”
Danhausen, Mr. Iguana and the Joy of Theatre
For all the darkness people associate with Vampiro, he absolutelylights up when we talk about the sillier side of wrestling – the theatrics and absurdity that define so much of what fans love today. I bring up names like Mr. Iguana, Danhausen, and some of the more outrageous characters in JCW – the ones who lean into comedy, surrealism and cult fandom. His answer is pure joy: “Oh, hell yeah, because they’re living their dream. Fuck yeah. I mean, who am I to say anything?”
On Mr. Iguana, he’s genuinely impressed: “Mr. Iguana has… he’s convinced people that he’s authentically interested in his work. And I love that.” On Danhausen, he describes bumping into him on the Comic Con circuit: “He’s having fun, and he’s doing it so well, and he loves it. I mean, how could you not support that?”
Then, there’s CoKane in JCW, whose name and act are exactly what you think they are. “You got a guy in the ring who busts out a fucking bag of cocaine and he does his… I mean, you could, where else could you do that? Is it wrong? Yeah, of course, it’s wrong. But is it fun? It’s awesome. It’s so much fun. It’s so out there.”
For Vampiro, the key is intention and impact. If no one’s getting hurt and it’s bringing joy, he’s all in. “If you’re going to criticize something like that, then you got a problem,” he adds. “If you watch the six o’clock news and you look at all the bullshit that the politicians are doing and saying, and then you’re worried about pro wrestling… come on, get over it.”
For a man who once symbolised danger and intensity, it’s telling that what he celebrates now, maybe more than anything, isfun– which makes his willingness to go out there one more time at StrangleMania feel even more like a gift than an obligation.
Why Supernatural Gimmicks “Don’t Work” Anymore
Given his long association with darkness, ritual and supernatural overtones, I ask the obvious question: in 2026, do occult or “spooky” gimmicksstill work? He doesn’t even pause. “I don’t think it does.” This isn’t bitterness; it’s about authenticity. Vampiro is blunt about the difference between himself and many of today’s “dark” characters: “I truly belonged to a vampire cult. I truly did my time studying voodoo. I truly slept in Aleister Crowley’s house in Italy. I did the rituals. To me, it was never a gimmick.”
He draws a clear line between that and the hyper-commercial product of modern wrestling, where every look can be focus-tested and every edge sanded down. Today, he argues, there’s just too much information for “fake mysticism” to hold. “With so much access on the internet and so many conspiracy theories and programs like Ancient Aliens… you can’t lie. You can’t hide it. You can’t be fake.”
When Vamp mentions Rhea Ripley – one of WWE’s most recognisable goth-codedstars – he’s careful to show respect, while still underlining his point. “She’s real Gothic looking, yeah, and the tattoos and all that. But look at her beginning. She wasn’t that. She became that.” He stresses he’s not burying her – in fact, he calls her “very successful,” and wishes her well. His issue isn’t with talent; it’s with presentation and the marketing of “darkness” as an aesthetic when, for him, it was a lived reality. For Vampiro, if you’re going to claim a subculture or an occult identity, you live it – or you’re a poser. He quotesMick Jones of The Clash: “He said, you know punk, you don’t learn it. You either are born with it, or you’re not.”
Then he turns the lens on himself: “I was just a punk rock kid… I never went in there, ‘I’m going to be this punk rock and rock and roll guy as a gimmick.’ I’m like, this is kind of how I dress coming to the arena, I don’t really change to go into the arena.” In other words: he wasn’tplayingVampiro. Hewas Vampiro. “If you’re a real authentic rock and roller, punk rocker, skinhead, whatever it is you want to call yourself, you never fly the flag and say, ‘Hey, look at me, I’m responsible for that.’ The person who does that’s a fucking poser.”
So, when people say he brought punk, goth and metal into mainstream wrestling consciousness, he says. “Was I responsible for anything? I think it was irresponsible more like it.”
After the Blood and Fire: Lessons From a 40-Year Ride
For all the mythology around him – fire matches with Sting, bloodbaths with Raven, making stars like Penta – Vampiro is disarmingly unsentimental about his in-ring “legacy”. He doesn’t have a single favourite match. “I would rather say that I had the beautiful experience of no matter where I went… I was always in the top mix. And I was always part of something that was explosive.”
Whatdoesmatter to him, now, is what cameafter the main events and magazine covers: surviving fame, addiction, and the emotional crash that follows when the lights go down. The biggest lesson he’s learned? “You must have a relationship with life outside of this falseness of fame,” he says. “You are a character. You are not important to the business. You will come and go… Do not put more importance on that than your personal relationships with life.”
It’s a hard-earned insight. He talks openly about the pain of ageing out of the spotlight without an “exit plan” for his identity. “Going from a 20 year old man to all of a sudden, being 58 years old and not knowing how to communicate, not having any friends your age, not being an adult – that was dangerous.”
Now, he measures success differently: in quiet mornings, in the freedom to study, create and live without a boss or a brand dictating his time. “What brings me true joy and happiness is I’m alive. I’m drug free. I’m in control of my injuries, my relationships… I’m really involved in documentary filmmaking, getting really into AI movies, making music, doing my podcast and radio.” Then, the line that might be the most important of the whole conversation: “I am 1,000,000% for the first time in my life, free and happy. That’s everything to me.”
Vampiro’s magic
If you think the occult side of Vampiro faded when the cameras stopped rolling, you’d be very wrong. It’s just moved into a different phase. He’s back in school, studyingpsychologyandthe history of religion and magic. Not just Golden Dawn and Crowley-era texts, but belief systems that pre-date Egypt.
Right now, he’s rereading the Gnostic Bible and working with rare texts he’s unearthed in Mexico – including a Bible over 300 years old. “To see the changes that have happened over the last 150–200 years in the Bible, within the church… what they’re blocking out, changing, rewording – to me, to have access to all these things, I fucking love it.”
He’s also a Freemason, deep into podcasting, ritual work and sound. “Because I practice magic, and I’m really into my podcasting and all of that… when I take a lot of mushrooms and I need to go to certain places and that drone music and different frequencies, you know, it’s a whole process for me.” On his podcast, guests participate inmagic rituals on air, blending performance, spirituality and self-exploration. It’s very on-brand: still theatrical, still risky, but now in service of healing and understanding rather than spectacle alone.
“Hit the Wall”: Advice to His Younger Self
Near the end, I ask him the classic question: what would you tell your younger self if you could sit with him now? He doesn’t go for the cliché. “Don’t change anything,” he says immediately. “Make the same mistakes. Hit the wall the same. Do everything. Fuck it up.”
The reason is simple: every scar, every screw-up, every bad decision led him to this version of himself – clean, creative, loved, and at peace enough to walk away on his own terms with a final, messy, heartfelt match in front of people who genuinely care. He does offer one blunt warning though:“The greatest lesson I learned is you don’t have any friends in pro wrestling. You have people who need you in that moment, and once they get what they need, they don’t talk to you anymore. So be careful of that.”
Yet even there, he finds a bright spot. When he counts his true friends, he comes up with three – and then widens the umbrella to includeeveryone at JCW. “Those three friends are JCW. Anybody who’s in that promotion, I will call my friend.”
Why the Fans and Media Matter
Before we wrap, he flips the script. He doesn’t want the last word to be about himself, his matches or his mystique. He wants it to be about the people who keep this strange industry alive – the fans, the podcasters, the bloggers, the writers, the ones still obsessing over characters and stories long after the mainstream has moved on. “The importance of people like yourself… people who do their podcasts, people who are blogging and posting – not just the haters and the trolls, but people who are legitimate fans to the point where they do things like you’re doing,” he says. “That’s part of my legacy.”
For all the fire, blood, cults and chaos, maybe that’s the most punk thing about Vampiro: that he sees his legacy not just in title runs or graphic matches, but in the alternative kids, the misfits, goths and metalheads who saw him on TV and felt a little less alone. If this truly is the final match, it feels right that it’s happening at StrangleMania, under the JCW banner, powered by Juggalos and orchestrated by Violent J, a man he believes is “even worse” than he ever was. It feels right that, after 40-plus years of giving himself to the ring, Vampiro’s happiest sentence isn’t about a belt, a rating or a main event. It’s this one: “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
Listen to the full chat below: