After months of speculation and vignette teases, WWE’s Raw on Netflix debut revealed what most had already suspected, that Pentagon Jr. aka Penta el Cero Miedo aka Penta (which was revealed to be his WWE ring name) is heading to the company.
Amidst a jam-packed show, WWE aired the final in a series of vignettes, revealing Penta’s name. Later on in the night, they expounded on his imminent debut as Chad Gable looked to call out the best luchador walking planet Earth. In his press conference to close out the night on the post-show, Paul Levesque all but confirmed Penta would be that luchador telling reporters that he thinks they’ve already guessed who Gable was calling out for Monday’s show.
For those who don’t know much about Penta, Last Word on Pro Wrestling is here to help as we offer a comprehensive look at WWE’s newest luchador, the one who has cero miedo.
Who is Penta and What is Cero Miedo?
Like many luchadors of Mexican fame, little is known about the 39-year-old Penta, including his real name. A luchador who has never been unmasked, Penta is a man of mystery and a man of many names. He began his career as Zaius before becoming the ninth wrestler to take on the famed Pentagon mantle, arguably destroying the curse that came with the name. In fact, Penta laughed at the curse, coming up with his iconic catchphrase, “Zero/ Cero Miedo” in the process. It means “zero fear,” which was exactly how Penta approached taking on the cursed gimmick and his life in the ring in general.
Pentagon Jr., as he came to be known in AAA, started wrestling in 2004 with his first confirmed match occurring in 2008 against his brothers and his first confirmed title in 2009. Outside of that, little is known about those first six years of his time in the business. In 2010, Penta wrestled a try-out match for AAA, later joining the promotion full-time in 2011. However, it wasn’t until 2012 that his career began to take off. Looking to surpass CMLL, AAA brought back some of their most popular gimmicks from the 90s including the rivalry between Pentagon and Octagon. They cast the original Kalisto as Octagon Jr. and the wrestler formerly known as Zaius as Pentagon Jr.
Penta was gaining some traction in AAA alongside his younger brother Rey Fenix, but he was still just a midcard rudo (heel) without much of a pathway forward. He continued to wrestle in AAA and other smaller promotions throughout Mexico through 2013. Largely stuck in a rut, when the opportunity to join a new United States wrestling promotion arose, Penta took it. It was easily the best decision of his young career and he had cero miedo about taking the offer.
As Penta recalls, he was the last of five AAA wrestlers recruited to take part in the brand new and experimental American-televised promotion, Lucha Underground. Originally, only high-flyers were wanted but after a strong endorsement from Vampiro, Pentagon was chosen alongside his brother Fenix and three others.
Lucha Underground Introduces the World to Pentagon Jr.
A blend of wrestling and cinema produced by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and Mark Burnett, a producer best known for his reality TV hits such as “The Voice,” “The Apprentice,” and “Survivor,” one of the original reality TV competition shows, Lucha Underground was in many ways, a genre of its own. The show combined Burnett’s sense of reality with Rodriguez’ dark storytelling. And for much of the series, the character of Pentagon Jr. was right at the heart of it all.
Like many wrestlers who primarily plied their trade in Mexico, Penta joined Lucha Underground as a relative unknown to a large swath of the American audience, whom he was interacting with for the first time. Set in Boyle Heights, California, Lucha Underground served as the first time Penta, and others from AAA, had ever wrestled on American soil. It was a bug that wouldn’t leave him as his career continued, carrying him all over the world. But before that happened, Penta truly became a star.
Debuting in the series’ third episode, it didn’t take long for the Pentagon Jr. character to become a fan favorite. Following a rivalry with his brother, Penta began a gimmick where after each match he would ‘break’ his opponents’ arms. In story, Penta was doing this at the will of his master, who was later revealed to be Vampiro. Pentagon Jr. and Vampiro had one of the most brutal and bloody battles in LU’s history when they met in a Cero Miedo match at the end of season one. It was this match that as Penta himself tells it, made him a star and led to him receiving offers to work more extensively across the United States. He began to work the indies, while maintaining the exclusive non-compete he and the others signed to remain with Lucha Underground for seven seasons. While not standard for a wrestling contract, this type of deal was common in the world of TV of which LU existed.
The twisted student/teacher relationship with Vampiro continued for Pentagon Jr.’s four-season run on the show, with both looking to one-up the other and Penta looking to show Vampiro that the mentor had become the mentee. While originally cast as a tweener-type role, Vampiro’s teachings ultimately led to Penta turning heel and the most dangerous version of his persona, Pentagon Dark, emerging. Since Lucha Underground dealt with the fantastical, Pentagon Dark was presented as having almost god-like powers with this dark persona, unable to feel pain and becoming a much stronger version of himself. It was this version who went on to win the Lucha Underground Championship twice, and later successfully defended that title in the Aztec Warfare match, making him the only wrestler to ever do so.
The Lucha Brothers Take America – and the World – by Storm
Throughout Lucha Underground, Penta was introduced to a global audience and began making appearances on a series of wrestling shows and promotions.
In 2018, his career took another shift as Lucha Underground was on an indefinite hiatus, but still holding its wrestlers to their non-competes with anticipation for a fifth season on the way. That limited where Penta and the others could wrestle. However, those limitations didn’t stop Penta’s rise as shortly after a joint WrestleMania Week show with IMPACT/TNA Wrestling, Penta found himself on the promotion’s roster. In his first official match with IMPACT, he won the world title, though his reign was short-lived.
Overall, Penta’s singles run in IMPACT was largely forgettable. Still, the promotion did provide a televised platform for Penta and Fenix to showcase their abilities as a tag team, something that was never really utilized during their time in LU. On both the indies and IMPACT, Penta and Fenix shined as the Lucha Brothers, starting to win tag team titles wherever they went.
2018 saw Penta wrestle the most matches he had in any year in his career, a number that still stands to this day. Among these matches included a return to AAA for the first time since early 2017, and time spent in MLW, DEFY, Warrior Wrestling, the Crash, and CMLL to name a few. Penta wrestled for over 50 companies that year, compiling 162 total matches. 2018 truly was his year as he won five titles, of both the singles and tag team variety.
The Lucha Brothers had become household names at this point, popping up at every major indie and seen widely on TV through MLW and IMPACT. It was pretty inevitable what was going to happen next and in 2019, with no signs of Lucha Underground reaching a fifth season, both Penta and Fenix signed non-exclusive deals to join AEW. Having already wrestled in IMPACT, MLW, and AAA among others that year, the brothers made their debut at Double or Nothing in May, losing their AAA tag team titles to the Young Bucks. However, that was only just the beginning.
Pentagon Jr. is All Elite
When Lucha Underground was officially canceled before its fifth season, all talent were released from their stringent contracts and free to pursue opportunities elsewhere. For Penta and Fenix, that meant a full-time commitment to AEW. The two wrestled exclusively as a unit, much like they had on the indies and in several of their prior televised promotions, nearly capturing the tag titles in a tournament held in mid-2019. It wasn’t until later that year that Pentagon made his singles debut for AEW, though not in a much meaningful way.
In March 2020, Penta and Fenix joined with PAC as Death Triangle and together, the trio had much success, though much of it came later in their run. As 2020 came to a close, a world title tournament saw Penta lock horns with his brother. As Fenix was starting to get pushed by AEW into the singles spotlight, an injury sidelined him along with the Lucha Brothers’ long-awaited tag team title pursuit. Penta continued wrestling alongside PAC but 2021 really served as the year he made any sort of singles impact in AEW. Though, that run was short-lived, as once Fenix returned the brothers finally had their moment, winning the AEW tag team titles at All Out while simultaneously being AAA champions as well. Neither reign was meant to last however as the Lucha Brothers lost the AAA titles before year’s end and only held the AEW titles into the dawn of 2022.
The new year didn’t bring much success for the Lucha Brothers with Fenix again battling a period of injury. But in September, things began to turn around as Death Triangle won the World Trios Championships for the first time in their near-three-year run. Death Triangle battled the Elite in a best-of-seven series to mark the end of 2022 into 2023, where Penta found himself once again losing a title to the Young Bucks as a new year began. Throughout 2023, the Lucha Brothers didn’t taste much success as a duo, though Penta once again found himself with a chance at singles glory, falling just short of opportunities to win gold in both Ring of Honor and AEW. Injury woes to Fenix again left Penta with singles chances in 2024, though his role in AEW was already on the backburner by this point. He wrestled his last match for the promotion in July and wrestled his last match overall in September. That is, until now.
The Cero Miedo Era Begins for Penta in WWE
Following the end of Lucha Underground and the 2020 expiration of their non-compete, rumors began to speculate that both Penta and Fenix were headed to WWE. However according to Penta, at the time, WWE made no significant offer, whereas AEW did. Now, over four years later, WWE has made an offer and it comes at a time when the Lucha Brothers seem to both be ready to say goodbye to AEW. Though for now, it is only Penta who can leave as due to his various injuries, AEW has tacked another year to Fenix’ contract in what seems to be turning into an ugly split.
With Penta headed to WWE and Fenix unable to join him for some time, this marks the first time the brothers won’t be in the same promotion. From their earliest days in AAA to LU, IMPACT, MLW, and AEW, the brothers have always been a unit. They’ve been tag team champions in 12 different promotions including all of the major ones (MLW, AAA, AEW, PWG, ROH, TNA), and will no doubt look to add WWE titles to their resume in the future.
But for now, Penta is set to be all on his own and ready to craft his most significant career singles run since his time in LU over a decade ago. While Fenix is almost assuredly headed to WWE as soon as he can, fans will first be treated to a year of a solo run for Penta, something that hasn’t been seen in over five years. Penta never really had the chance to be a singles star in AEW, at least not to the extent he did in LU, a role that truly put him on the map. Make no mistake, the Lucha Brothers are a fantastic tag team but for those who don’t know, Penta is also a more than capable singles star. And in WWE, at least for the time being, he’ll likely get to showcase that side and that talent. Perhaps as soon as Monday night. It’s time for the era of cero miedo.
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