As previously noted, Impact Wrestling is currently in Mexico City for a two-day television taping event that will film enough material to take the promotion up to their Bound for Glory pay-per-view on October 14th.
During taping for the first episode, which will air this coming Thursday night on Pop TV, Eli Drake issued an open challenge to any talent from Mexico that wanted to try their luck against a former world champion. In an unexpected debut, the challenge was accepted by none other than La Parka!
El peor pecado que pueden hacer es vender a La Parka AAA como LA Park que lucho en WCW pic.twitter.com/jEgo1b7PoI
— Kuliao_ (@Kuliao_) September 14, 2018
Now, to be clear, the current incarnation of the La Parka is NOT the original character that fans worldwide grew to love in WCW during the late 90s. Technically, this version is La Parka II (Jesus Escoboza) who previously wrestled as La Parka Jr. before taking on the role of the character completely in 2003, much to the anger of the Mexican fanbase, who largely remains loyal to the original (Adolfo Tapia).
The rights to the “La Parka” name and likeness actually belong to AAA, which at the time was run by Antonio Pena. When Tapia returned to Mexico in 2003 and signed with CMLL, the promotion’s main domestic rival, Pena took legal action against him and ultimately barred him from using the name and costume. And so the original La Parka became “L.A. Park”, with slight changes to his look, while Escoboza was established as the new La Parka.
This is an interesting situation, as there have been reports for weeks now that Impact Wrestling was looking to bring in L.A. Park and even had plans to use him at Bound for Glory in a major international bout. With certain stars (mainly L.A. Park, Pentagon Jr. and Fenix) now able to work both CMLL and AAA – something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago – and given the relationship Impact has with both AAA and MLW in the U.S., it’s very possible this could be the start of an angle to bring the original character to television in the near future.