Title History
- Dominican Heavyweight title ();
Career Highlights
- Legend has it, Jack Veneno once defeated NWA World Champion Ric Flair in the Dominican Republic for an ‘unrecorded’ title switch..
- ~~~The match happened in 1982, and catapulted Veneno into legendary status amung the Dominican Republic community..
- ~~~Jack Veneno had Flair in his sleeper hold as time ran out, and Veneno was announced as the NEW NWA World champion!
- In the rematch, with it being billed as Veneno defending against Flair, who had Roddy Piper in his corner..
- ~~~The plan was for Piper to help Flair win, but when Piper went to interfere, several guards at ringside pointed guns at his head!
- ~~~In Flair’s book, he described that he sensed the crowd would riot if he pinned the local hero so he improvised during the match..
- ~~~Flair took the belt home with him and the match was never acknowledged or recognized by the NWA..
- They said that Veneno didn’t want to leave the D.R. to defend the belt around the world, so he gave it back to Flair and the NWA..
- Jack Veneno ran a wrestling promotion for many years in the Dominican Republic which had a show on Color Visión..
- ~~~Veneno himself typically held the “Dominican Heavyweight Championship” during those years..
Ariel Duran wrote in with these memories: Hello there. My name is Ariel Duran, I’m 27 years old and I’m from Santiago, Dominican Republic. I’ve been a wrestling fan as long as I can remember and the first wrestler I knew of was none other than Jack Veneno (or as I call him Poison Jack). I remember watching the Rick Flair vs Jack Veneno match. I was about 3 our 4 years old when it happend but let me tell you, Veneno did not let one single dominican in this island at the time forget that he beat Flair. There is footage of the match, I know because I saw it a billion times, cause he put it on TV every second as a commercial to advertise his version of the NWA.
I have to tell you Jack Veneno’s catch phrase, that he only said if he was seriasly going to kick someones a$*. It was some thing like this: “Yo soy un hombre de pelo en pecho” (I’m a chest hair man) and the best one, he would bend on one knee, hit his chest whith his right arm and say: ” Lo juro por mi mama, Doña Tatica que le voy a ganar” (I swear on my mother Doña Tatica that I’ll beat him).
Now, who is the guy that got the credite of bringing Flair to DR in the storyline? Veneno’s long time enemy: Relampago Hernandez. This dude was bad. He had a very looooooong rivalry whith Veneno, he was known by these two names: “El Genio del Mal” (The geanius of evil) and “La Gallina” (The Chiken) He’s around 5′ 9”, like 210 lbs. (I think Veneno is around the same height and weight) and his finisher was “El enterron de cabeza” (Piledriver)
In storyline, Relampago would keep bringing wrestlers from “diferent parts of the world” sent by none other than The Nature Boy himself! (it was funny as hell, when it was time for “los rudos” [the brawlers] to do their promos, Relampago would show a video of Rick Flair saying something to the camera and getting on his LearJet, and would put on some subtitles saying stuff to Veneno, that he was going to get his belt back and the he would send So and So to get it back, I’f you watched the video and did not know a like of english you’d probably buy it, but, my brother and I knew what Flair was saying, and it had nothing to do with Veneno!!!)
Relampago was big on the mic, he cut great promos, though he did not have any catchphraises like veneno that I remember. Relampago wrestled for Veneno till the early 90’s then he wrestled indy’s around the country, and made a name for himself in Puerto Rico. He did some drugs and went to Jail for like 3 years but now he is clean, and is now a deacon for the Catholic Church here in DR.
I just thought you should know about him, cause here in DR he is as loved as Veneno is. To us, he is our Ric Flair, the best heel of all time.