PCO Talks About Career Year, Defining His Character, Heading to BOLA

2018 has been a breakout year for 50-year-old Pierre Carl Ouellet, better known to wrestling fans these days as PCO. The veteran grappler recently spoke with Daily DDT about what has made 2018 so special so far.

WrestleMania Weekend is a time that offers career-changing opportunities. Most fans usually associate that time of year with WWE, and most of the focus of the wrestling world is on the worldwide leader. But perhaps no performer benefitted from heading to New Orleans during the WrestleMania 34 festivities than PCO.

Pierre Carl Ouellet is a long-time veteran of professional wrestling. You probably first heard of him when we wrestled as “Pierre” in the WWF. As one half of the Quebecers, he and tag partner Jacques Rougeau won the WWF World Tag Team Championships three times in the early 1990s. After being repackaged as “Jean-Pierre LaFitte,” a pirate character, Ouellet had a notable feud with Bret Hart.

Ouellet spent some time in WCW, ECW, and TNA before heading to the independent circuit. He retired in 2011, but since professional wrestling retirements never last he returned in 2016. This recent run eventually led to a match at Joey Janela’s Spring Break 2 against WALTER, which has turned PCO’s career around.

Besides his work in the ring, PCO has been praised for his workout videos, posted to his YouTube channel and Twitter account. His work with friend, trainer, and manager Destro has captivated wrestling fans around the world.

PCO is everywhere now, booked for Starrcast, CHIKARA’s King of Trios, PWG BOLA, and a ton of MLW shows. He was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to speak with Daily DDT about just how incredible 2018 has been — so far.

DDT: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

PCO: Let’s do it.

DDT: You’ve become one of the most sought after performers on the independent circuit; how does it feel to be in such demand?

PCO: It’s awesome, it’s great. The way that the public has responded, it’s so amazing. All over, basically, North America, in like Toronto, or Ottawa, or New York, or Texas, other places, wherever I go, it’s such a welcome. It seems like everybody’s in love with that character. So crazy, it’s totally crazy.

It’s always what I dreamed about, when I started in this business, you look at things you really dreamed about… I don’t know exactly why this year. I’ve always thought whatever year it was, I’ll get to something big, get something to pop up and make it big. As much as I promoted, you wait — as a wrestler you feel like sometimes you aren’t exposing the way you want to be exposed.

But I feel like this year, just out of the blue, this has been my year so far, so unexpected. Obviously it’s great!

DDT: How did your match against WALTER during WrestleMania Weekend come about?

PCO: Well, it’s so crazy, the story, it’s unbelievable. Somebody reached out, but the story was I got in touch with someone in Chicago for a show, and he wanted me — it was Black Label Pro — he wanted me for either January 14 or April 21. And I decided to go for January, even though I hadn’t really worked out my character, my style wasn’t polished…

So I took that show, spent seven hours on an aircraft out of Montreal in the snow — almost missed the show, got there 20 minutes before the bell, and had a match with Ethan Page. And it came out great, super match. Joey Janela was there, and the rest is pretty much history.

Joey wanted me on Spring Break 2, against WALTER. I took a few weeks before deciding but decided to go with it. And it’s probably been THE most important match of my life. That triggered my…

DDT: Your whole resurgence this year?

PCO: Yeah. You know, what triggered Stone Cold Steve Austin? There’s the 3:16 promo which he dropped, and when he passed out in the blood to Bret Hart. Those two moments created Stone Cold Steve Austin. Mankind, when he went through the cage, down the cage in the match with the Undertaker — that triggered the big wave for Mankind.

The Ethan Page match was huge for me, but the match with WALTER, it really changed everything. Lately having the training with Destro, too, we made some promos for that, too, that really helped to put all the eyes on the upcoming match.

There were a lot of crossroads, but the people that were really critical to the success were Joey Janela, Game Changer Wrestling, Michael Blanton with Black Label Pro, Ethan Page — there’s a lot of little miracles that are responsible. And the match with WALTER, obviously, that’s when people started to realize they were seeing something special. Towards the end of the match, everybody was locked in, and the heaps of praise for the match were great.

I got to work more and more, and it helped to really establish the character, define PCO. You know, the new way of walking, which is really my way of walking; Destro said to me, “You remind me of Frankenstein, the way you walk,” so we went with it.

DDT: You have a couple of debuts coming up over the next few weeks; what are your thoughts on BOLA? Anyone in the field you’re looking forward to getting a chance to work with?

PCO: Well, I know my first round will be Brody King, so that’ll be a great challenge. Two big guys, really looking forward to it. He’s pretty crazy, I’m pretty crazy, so I think it’s gonna be a crazy match. Pretty dangerous stuff, acrobatic stuff — our styles match up, in terms of going for the dangerous spots. Really looking forward to the whole tournament, really want to shift gears a little bit, because it is PWG. A lot of pressure to live up to, but I kinda wanna up my game a little bit for it.

More from Daily DDT

DDT: You mentioned wanting to shift gears a little bit, so I want to shift gears for a second, too. CHIKARA is advertising the return of “Jean-Pierre LaFitte” for King of Trios this weekend; is that something you ever thought would happen? Or is it going to be more of a modern PCO with some of the old pirate gear?

PCO: Oh, it’s going to be Frankenstein with just an eye patch (laughs). I’m not going to break character, or change anything, go with what works.

DDT: For my last question, I want to lighten things up a bit. When you’re on the road, what’s your go-to meal on a show day? What does PCO feast on?

PCO: Well, traveling with Destro, it’s really the same kinds of things we eat every day. Lots of eggs, you know, and home made muffins, we bring a lot from home. On a show day, I try to eat early in the day — oatmeal, egg whites, fruits. I pretty much try to get all my calories in in the morning, and just maintain for the rest of the day.

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Big thanks to PCO for taking the time to speak with us. You can check his social media for upcoming appearances, like Starrcast, King of Trios, MLW, and BOLA. And make sure to check out his training videos, because, as everyone knows, PCO is not human.

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