“Cuban Assassin” Fidel Sierra On Who he Feels Killed WCW, The Politics of WCW & ECW, Negdog Championship Wrestling’s recent success, Paragon Pro, more
Guest: “Cuban Assassin” Fidel Sierra
Date: 06/17/2025
Your Host: James Walsh
Fidel Sierra is the Negdog Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Champion. A veteran of nearly 50 years, Sierra has worked Championship Wrestling from Florida, World Class Championship Wrestling, Paul Boesch’s Houston territory, WCW, ECW, and even helped run Paragon Pro Wrestling in 2015. He’s been in every major territory including the WWE and has wrestled and defeated stars as big as Ric Flair. Now, he’s got Ricky Love in his sights as the new generation of pro wrestlers look to take down the veteran champion.
A great chat that includes stories about Curt Hennig, Black Bart, Ric Flair, the death of WCW, and so much more!
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CUBAN ASSASSIN:
On getting in the ring still after over 45 years in the business:
“I love it. I get to wrestle all over the country and I’ve even wrestled overseas, in England for Paige, Saraya’s family. They’re great people. But, I love to still be able to do this. And, I’m proud to be the Negdog Championship Wrestling champion. This is a great promotion. They started about a year ago and I am telling you, they are truly on fire. Everywhere we go, we draw a bigger and bigger crowd. I am always going to represent Cuba. But, I do love to represent Negdog Championship Wrestling with their World Title.”
On his next title defense:
“I am not going to just put myself over because, of course, if you’re from Cuba, you can’t help but be the best. But, on June 22nd, Negdog Championship Wrestling will hold Music and Mayhem 4 from Circle S BBQ in Hudson, Florida. I am going to be facing the “Tangerine Dream” Ricky Love… I’ve been watching this kid. He’s like 2, 3 and 0. He’s undefeated. He caught my eye way before now. But, he had the nerve to challenge me for the title. I don’t care how long I’ve been in this business, I always study my opponents. It isn’t his fault that he calls himself the “Tangerine Dream.” Oh my God! He looks like a ghost out of Ghostbusters! I don’t take him lightly. But, I know I will remain Negdog Heavyweight Champion! But, you’ve got to teach these young guys. I take all that serious. But, he has to realize all the years, all the psychology, the American looking ghost is going to go down and I’m going to show him why Cuba is the best.”
On what stars there are to look out for from NCW:
“Nic Swift is good. You’ve got Carolina Cruz, she is my cousin, she is very talented. James Morrison is good. YOu’ve got, from the NWA, Natalia Markova. There are all kinds of talented guys and girls and they all are with Nedog Championship Wrestling!
On the modern style being so high fly and high spot oriented:
“That is the part I don’t agree with. Don’t get me wrong, I did my high cross bodies off the top rope in my younger days. But, sometimes you watch these matches and they do all these flips and flops and then the finish is something unimpressive after something that was more impressive didn’t finish the match. It is a shame that these men and women think that to have a great match, you have to do all of these death defying moves that will result in them never having a career that lasts nearly as long as mine has. It is not their fault, though. I blame the ones who trained them. That is what I like about Negdog. They are more old school and they present wrestling the right way.”
On why WCW kept changing his name:
“It was a company decision. After 9/11 and the other attack on the World Trade Center, they said I couldn’t do certain things. For a while, I was wrestling under a mask as the Terrorist. They told me I couldn’t do that anymore. They didn’t like the Cuban Assassin. I was like, “Why? I’m from Cuba… I assassinate my opponents.” But, what are you going to do, argue with them when you’re making good money working for them? So, I got different names. The Cuban Top Gun, David Sierra, Fidel Sierra.”
on WCW Saturday Night in late 1999 and 2000 being a completely different style of show than Nitro:
“Yeah, we had it going on. It was Jimmy Hart that ran it. It was a little old school. But, we had it going! One week, WCW Saturday Night at 6:05 on TBS did a 3.4 rating. On Monday, Nitro did a 3.6. Nothing against Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, or any of the guys that were on Nitro. But, we were doing nearly as well and it was myself, “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, and other guys battling over the TV title after Scott Hall had thrown it it in the trash. So, I’ll tell you what they did. They pulled the plug on us (on WCW Saturday Night). I just saw Duggen at River Con which was a great event and we were talking about this. We were like, “We didn’t even have to touch each other for 10 minutes because we had the people going “USA, USA” and all that. But, I remember, Ric Flair was backstage. He was World Champion. Duggan came back through the curtaina fter one of our matches and he threw his board at the wall. Flair was like “What’s wrong?” I said, “What’s wrong with him? THey won’t let us do our thing!” ”
On who killed WCW:
“I would have to say it was more than just one person. The show put a lot of the blame on Jim Herd for hiring a lot of people. I mean, God, he was throwing money around. But, then, so was Eric Bischoff. I like Eric Bischoff but he does have to take some of the blame. He brought in the nWo and he was snatching guys up from the WWE at twice, three times what they were making there. God bless Curt Hennig, he was a good friend of mine. Eric Bischoff made him such a good offer that Vince McMahon told him he had to go, he had to take it because he couldn’t match it.”
On his brief shots in ECW and why he thinks people remember ECW so fondly:
“They broke all the rules. They did everything. THere was barbed wire, guys jumping off balconies, they did everything that you could imagine. Sabu just passed away. That hurt me badly. I was sorry to hear that. My time in ECW, I never made TV. They brought me to Fort Lauderdale and to Tampa. We got on the mic, me and Fantasy, and the crowd got into it right away. They were chanting “USA, USA, USA” and “She’s a crack-whore!” (laughs) I came back, Paul Heyman couldn’t believe it. We hadn’t even been on their TV and the fans were with it. THe next time they came around, they didn’t let us touch the mic. If I remember, they didn’t even give us music. It was just go to the ring and have the match. I don’t know why they didn’t give me a job. I guess they had their crew – And it was a great crew. But, I wasn’t in it.”
On if he is actually Bill Alfosno’s brother:
“No, here it is. We grew up together. I was 14, he might have been 12. I was fishing, me and this other guy, and we get bombed by oranges. So, I’m like, “What the Hell!” I chased him down and I caught him and it was Fonzy! I didn’t beat him up. But, that is where it started. I went to Texas in 1978 to work for the Funk’s. I brought Fonzy with me. It was Terry Funk versus the Original Sheik, Sabu’s Uncle. Fonzy was the referee. I stayed in Texas and Fonzy came home. Paul Jones, who met him through me in Mid Atlantic, called him up and he started doing more referee work. Fonzy is one of the best referees ever in this business. And, he’s like a brother. Right down the middle!”
Onwhat went wrong with Paragon Pro Wrestling that was on POP TV in 2015:
“Whew! That was interesting. I had a part of what was going on behind the scenes. It was me and “The Grappler” Len Denton calling the shots behind the scenes with the owner’s permission. Then, another guy from WWE came in… Matt Striker was his name. Good guy. But, he was trying to go over our heads. That is my philosophy on it, anyway. So, Lenny and I were so close, the promoter decided to met me go. They brought in a friend of mine, Joey Jackson who is just as qualified as I am. But, I don’t know if the promoter was using it as a tax write off or something because he did some crazy things and spent a lot of money. Then, they decided to leave Las Vegas and move to Portland. They didn’t establish themselves as Paragon and then restarted the name. But, they had a great crew. Did you see the guy I was managing? Tyshawn Prince? If they would have kept him with me, he would have been World Champion and I have no doubt WWE would have snagged him. He had the whole package.”
