Friday, February 16, 2007

WWE RAW: Super Crazy


Ring name(s) Super Crazy,Super Crazzy,Super Loco,Super Lobo,Histeria

Billed height 175 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Billed weight 94 kg (200 lb)
Born December 3, 1973
Tulancingo, Hidalgo, Mexico
Trained by Rey Pantera
Debut February 1988

Francisco Pantoja Islas (born December 3, 1973) is a Mexican professional wrestler best known by his ring name Super Crazy. Crazy is perhaps best known for his stint in Extreme Championship Wrestling and is now performing for World Wrestling Entertainment on its RAW brand.

Super Crazy was a mainstay on the Mexican independent circuit for years, before signing with the Asistencia Asesoría y Administración promotion in 1995. From there, he moved on to the Promo Azteca promotion where booker Konnan made him the focus of the cruiserweight division.

While there, Super Crazy had a legendary feud with Venum Black, which culminated in a mask vs hair match on March 6th in the city of Naucalpan. Crazy took the match and mask of Venum Black.

Super Crazy was picked up by Paul Heyman after displaying excellent physical abilities. He was signed in 1998 and had many incredible matches with the smaller men in ECW like Yoshihiro Tajiri and Little Guido Maritato. His match with Tajiri for the ECW Television Championship was voted "Match of the Year" by Pro Wrestling Illustrated in 2000.

Super Crazy won the ECW Television Championship at living dangerously 2000. The title had been vactated by Rob Van Dam and a tournament was held to crown a new champion. After beating Little Guido in the semi finals, Super Crazy went on to defeat Rhino in the final. He would lose the title a month later to Yoshihiro Tajiri.

After ECW folded, Super Crazy wrestled for different promotions like Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, Xtreme Pro Wrestling, International Wrestling Association, and at Ring of Honor's debut show where he beat Eddie Guerrero to become the IWA Intercontinental Champion. Crazy also appeared on the March 5, 2003 edition of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's weekly PPV's as one of Konnan's authentic luchadore challengers, where he would lose to Jerry Lynn.

In 2005, Crazy signed a contract with WWE. He appeared at the WWE-promoted ECW One Night Stand 2005 PPV on June 12, 2005 winning an international three-way dance by pinning Yoshihiro Tajiri in the final pinfall of the match, and during the match performed a moonsault from a second story balcony. He first appeared on WWE television on the June 18, 2005 airing of SmackDown!'s sister show WWE Velocity, teaming with Psicosis to defeat Akio and Billy Kidman.

Psicosis, Super Crazy, and Juventud would soon group together to form a stable known as The Mexicools. The group made their debut as heels on the June 23, 2005 edition of SmackDown! when all three members rode to the ring on John Deere lawn mowers with the decals altered to say Juan Deere (John in Spanish) and wearing matching coveralls. They then attacked Chavo Guerrero and Paul London during their WWE Cruiserweight Championship match.

Juventud cut a promo questioning the lack of "true Mexican luchadores" in the cruiserweight division, before going on to deride the current state of Mexican Americans in general. Psicosis dubbed the lawnmower they arrived on a "Mexican Limo 2005" and the group claimed that even Mexico's President mocks Mexicans in the United States (in reference to Vicente Fox's controversial remark that Mexican immigrants do the jobs "not even the blacks want to do"). Juventud then stated that they were "no longer there to clean toilets and work for "them" (the "gringos") but "they" were going to be working for "us" (The Mexicools)", before dubbing the team "not Mexicans but Mexicools!" In the following weeks, they would continue to interfere in matches and mock the stereotypical image of Mexicans in the United States.

Despite being introduced as heels and thus meant to be disliked by the fans, the group quickly became favorites of the audience, and eventually began acting as faces. They received strong approval from the audience even during their debut, which occurred in Tucson, Arizona. The city is 35% Hispanic, which may have contributed to the unexpected reaction. On July 24, 2005 at the Great American Bash in Buffalo, New York, Psicosis pinned Steven Richards to secure the Mexicools' first PPV win in a six-man tag match with the bWo.

During December 2, 2005 edition of SmackDown! Super Crazy and Psicosis competed in an over the top rope battle royal against 5 other tag teams, the pair managed to win and earned themselves a match against MNM at Armageddon 2005 for the WWE tag team titles, unfortunately for the Mexicools MNM lost the tag team titles before their match. Not long after this Super Crazy and Psicosis would become the only Mexicools left in WWE, as Juventud was released from WWE on January 6, 2006.

Super Crazy and Psicosis would continue to wrestle as a tag team but Crazy would get his own push as a singles competitor, eventually earning himself #1 contendership for the Cruiserweight Championship and gained critical acclaim as an early candidate for "match of the year." in a WWE Velocity where Super Crazy defeated Nunzio on February 18, 2006.

During mid-2006 the ECW brand was redeveloped and with this came the expectations the Crazy would leave SmackDown! for the new ECW, this was later fueled with a match that would see Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy team up and face the F.B.I. at ECW One Night Stand 2006.

At this time, Crazy's partnership with Psicosis began to crumble when Psicosis repeatedly abandoned Crazy during incidents with a monster heel known as The Great Khali. This would soon develop into a short-lived feud with Psicosis turning heel and the team splitting up. After the breakup, both Psicosis and Super Crazy would disappear off WWE programming.

On September 4, 2006, Super Crazy made his RAW debut with a victory over Chris Masters using his trademark moonsault. Crazy would continue his feud with Masters throughout September, defeated him once more and competing with Masters, along with four other Superstars, in a Six-Pack Challenge Match for the Intercontinental Championship in which neither Masters or Crazy were able to win.

After the short feud with Masters, Crazy would become a mainstay on RAW's sister show Heat, before once again returning to the main show to feud with Masters, then be involved in angles with Johnny Nitro and Melina.

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