by Minerva Appleton
Luciana Verdoza seems to be doing better. She's at least walking again months after she got placed on the shelf by Tamara Mendoza at Vendetta. It was a brutal feud. Tamara went as far as to dig deep into Luciana's past during a time where she went by her stage name rather than her real name. Looking back, even Luciana has a mixed reception of that time of her career.
"Marina Valdivia was an albatross..." she prefaced.
Indeed, words like 'albatross' and 'colorful' are two ways to describe it. From 2008 to 2013, 'Marina' was basically ruling wrestling so to speak in places like HCW (Honor Championship Wrestling) and Pure Revolutionary Wrestling (PRW). In the former, she was the first woman in the entire company's history to win ANY sort of championship and she wound up winning 30 consecutive matches including her first of seven world championships. When HCW was sabotaged into the ground by their owner, PRW took its place. "Marina" did even better: world championships two through four, a Hall of Fame induction, the most defenses in the title's history, and one of the most hated women in the business. The "Marina" brand was in rare form.
But there was a caveat... one that for years put an asterisk on her success.
"I was Ryan Jackson's golden girl, as much as it sucks to admit..."
Ryan Jackson, the owner of PRW, initially found success in HCW running the company on an interim basis and bringing the company to success before the original owner came back and red inked everything. HCW collapsed and Ryan became part of PRW, eventually buying the company. Controversially, behind the scenes, he certainly had his favorites he prefered in the main event slot. Luciana was not only one of them (along with names like Myra Rivers, Jayson Schneider and Victoria Salinas), she was the centerpiece. Independent investigations confirm that Ryan acted alone. Contrary to initial speculation (largely planted by jealous, less successful wrestlers in PRW), there were no 'secret meetings'. There was no evidence that he colluded with Luciana and any of the others to hold anyone else down. But as always, when there is a stain, there's "another layer of shit" (as Luciana put it) underneath it.
"Affiliating with Premium Championship Wrestling was the biggest mistake he ever made and tht's what killed PRW" Luciana says bluntly.
PCW was a company that ran for a few years, general managed by James Baker. It was a company that prided itself on ultraviolence and controversy. Luciana was part of that locker room for a while. Ryan Jackson would make his own company look bad by constantly criticizing the product, and behind the scenes, constantly criticizing some wrestlers PCW would push, especially Danielle Lopez, who at the time was Baker's wife. How did Luciana get dragged into this mess?
"Ryan was constantly telling people that Danielle (who like Luciana was from San Diego) was overrated and only being pushed as a star because of who her husband was and that I was the far better San Diego product and that anywhere outside of PCW, I'd beat her handily."
"Did YOU personally believe that?"
Luciana gave her most honest, blunt answer.
"Danielle Lopez had an inflated win-loss record of over 50 wins and less than 10 losses. She was a decent in-ring talent, but her promo and character work left a LOT to be desired so in a sense, yes, she was always overrated. You can make the argument that maybe the 'Baker advantage' played a role in her main event status. But at the same time, she WAS over with the PCW audience and locker room. I personally believe outside of the PCW bubble, she isn't as successful but I'm not going to say she was only successful because of her husband."
"Ryan's words and actions alienated PCW against YOU though..."
"Correct."
"And in promos, you were shading Danielle quite often..."
"This is true. But that wasn't Luciana Maria Moretti in 2012 saying 'Danielle is overrated and is only getting opportunities because of who she's married to'. That was Marina Valdivia, the character, saying that. The problem was that there was an undercurrent of PCW resentment toward Ryan and everything to do with PRW, including me, that he was completely blind to. Was he being a prick? Sure he was. Absolutely. Even in his own company, he acted like a prick. But not a damn person in PCW told him he was being a prick and he was never given a chance to be aware of any behaviors that he had to change so because of this undercurrent of resentment that obviously I wasn't aware of myself at the time, we kept going business as usual. So when the 'Marina' persona was cutting those promos, from MY perspective, it was a character saying those things, but from THEIR perspective, it was ME, PERSONALLY, believing those things. They took it as a shoot when it was a work, but they worked themselves into a shoot because of that undercurrent of resentment. The truth is, neither side acted like adults. All Ryan had to do was stop being a prick and all PCW had to do was actually talk to him and say 'dude, you're being a prick. Cut it out'.
December 2012. The infamous "Struggle For Power III" promo disaster.
Danielle Lopez threw some shade at Luciana without even naming her calling her the "most boring passionless piece of shit".
"I wasn't offended by that..." Luciana admitted. "If anything, I was like 'OKAY. LET'S GO'. so when I had a chance to respond, I did. What was 'Marina Valdivia, the Glamour Queen, the most hated bitch in wrestling' and definitely a main event heel in the business going to do? Stay quiet? No that was never going to happen. So I did what any person portraying that level of heel would do, I slapped back and I slapped back hard. I thought I was just hyping up a future potential thing between Danielle and I. But then... 'undercurrent of resentment'... she took it horribly, she blocked me on social media. She went to town on me, on Ryan and ALL of PRW in what was obviously her working herself into a shoot and not being an adult about it and everything fell apart from there."
Luciana had to take a deep breath. She had to remember that Danielle has been dead for a few years now.
"I am speaking facts from my own perspective. I don't want to dance on her grave or anything. But from my personal experience, Danielle Lopez treated me horribly. She never took the chance to know me. She never bothered to know the real me. For all the niceness she portrayed on camera, off camera, she was one of the most miserable, bitter people I'd ever met and considering what I already felt about her (being overrated etc.), it painted a really bad picture for me."
PRW and PCW deaffiliated by February 2013. Two months later, PRW was out of business. May 2013, the "shit hit the fan". 'The Great Scandal', when Ryan Jackson's behind the scenes favoritism was outed to the world as a result of a bombshell private investigation. For months, PCW made fun of this, even going as far as running up the score on social media (which Danielle among others was involved with). Luciana was in ruins being the 'golden girl' of it all and she took the most heat.
"When PCW ran up the score, it showed me the kind of people they were. To this day, I say that the affiliation was garbage and both sides of it didn't know how to be adults. That showed me the true character of PCW, James Baker, Danielle Lopez, Jay Thunder, Talia Skye and all those people. They hated PRW because they hated Ryan. My career could never be the same after that and even though I had a run in IWC where I had a world title shot in my grasp only for it to slip away, the 'Marina Valdivia' brand was forever tainted and was always going to have a dark cloud over it. The whole thing was the Astros 2017 nonsense before the Astros 2017 nonsense happened."
For the next few months, PCW would run up the score...
A wrestler named Reyna Carter would take on the nickname "The Real Glamour Queen" as a shot at her.
PCW even hired an enhancement talent and named her "Marina Valdivia" as a shot at her.
Danielle among others would continue to take cheap shots. In fact, as recent as 2019, six whole years after the fact, Danielle was STILL expressing bitterness toward PRW, Ryan, Marina, among others and STILL expressing anger and that she would never forgive anyone or anything.
PCW themselves closed in October 2013. Their last event prior to shutting out the lights for good (aside from a few reunion shows ever since) was an awards ceremony. The last award that they gave out was "Douche of the Year". Not only was Ryan Jackson and PRW awarded this, but PCW went out of their way to hire actors and Indy wrestlers to parody and pretend like they were Ryan, Marina, Victoria, Jayson, Myra and Jazmyn Rain while the entire PCW roster mauled and beat the hell out of them.
"The way they ended their run was sad because instead of celebrating their own history and their own success, they went out pissing on a grave that was 6 months old at that point. At least they had reunion shows and that wasn't the last legitimate PCW memory. But, that was bad form for sure."
"How did you feel when they had that #ForDani tribute show considering your experiences with her?"
"Good for them for honoring her memory because I know how much she meant to those people. I hope that those she was close to and those deeply affected by her passing found some from of peace that night. That's all I am willing to say on that"
"If Danielle was still alive and you happened to come across her on the streets of San Diego, what would you say to her?"
"Not a damn thing."
Fast forward to 2026. 'Marina Valdivia' is long a thing of the past (no matter how many times Tamara wants to unearth it from the grave). Luciana has become one of the most successful wrestlers in 5BW history: longest world title reign, most defenses, a triple crown... but she admits one thing...
"If there was one thing I could do different during that reign it would be that I would've been the 'Glamour Queen' all over again. No disrespect to the Damned One gimmick and history, but even during that reign, I felt like something was missing."
Luciana didn't run any victory laps over Danielle Lopez or PCW during this interview. She's not going to. Even when she knows she endured what she did back in 2012 and 2013 and endured the effective death of the 'Marina Valdivia' and 'Glamour Queen' brands because of their behavior, she would rather not look behind and say 'I told you so', or 'I won'. She wouldn't look behind and say 'karma' and take joy in PCW's ultimate fate. She has decided to take the high road and look toward the future.
'" Yeah...Glamour' is coming back, bitches!" she exclaimed with excitement. She calls it a work in progress and she's even gone back to her wardrobe aesthetic from that era. She admits that going back and retro-modernizing the brand that was the closest to her heart feels like she's finally got her full power back.
"It's going to be a hashtag... GLAMCONIC... moment when I do come back!", Luciana declared.
She finally expressed some long earned peace on her face knowing that the ghosts of 'Marina Valdivia' have finally crossed over to the other side after all these years.
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