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Joaquin Wilde shares recently discovered advice from late father

Posted: Apr 9th 2025 By: Joseph Currier

Though he was raised by a single mother, Joaquin Wilde is using newly discovered advice from his late father to guide his life in the ring.

The LWO member shared an emotional social media post today revealing that he was recently able to hear his father’s voice in cassettes that were recorded prior to his death. Wilde always knew the tapes existed but did not know where they were located before his brother found them. In his message to his son, Wilde’s father told him to always give 100 percent effort to earn respect. It’s advice that Wilde now thinks about before every match he has.

“Never really knew my father. Right before he died, he recorded himself talking on cassette tapes, basically saying goodbye and im sorry to each of his kids. Apologizing for the difficult lives we were going to live because we would all grow up without a father,” Wilde wrote. “Never listened to the tapes but always knew they existed. Also had no clue where my mom had put them after so many years.

“Well my brother found them. So i got a digital cassette player, threw the audio in Ableton to clean it up and for the first time in my life, i was able to hear my dad’s voice and listen to him speak directly to me. Yeah sh*t was super sad and I cried alot. He gave me some fatherly advice though. One thing he said to me was, no matter what I’m doing, dont half-ass it and always give 100% because people will respect you for that. For some reason that simple piece of advice resonated and made me think about wrestling. Because the reality is, i dont get to have matches on TV every week. So whenever i am blessed with an opportunity to have a match in the WWE ring, i treat it like my life is on the line. I take big risks, i maximize my minutes and I put all of my energy into every choice that I make. And I think about my dad’s words before all my matches now too. Many things are out of my control, but one thing I can control is my effort. So I will always give 100% and all I can hope is that eventually people will recognize it and respect me for it.”

The risk-taking attitude of Wilde was on display last night on Raw, earning praise from Paul “Triple H” Levesque for a spot where he launched off Cruz Del Toro and Julius Creed and hit a dive onto Brutus Creed on the outside.

The LWO (Wilde, Del Toro & Dragon Lee) lost to El Grande Americano (Chad Gable) & The Creed Brothers in a six-man tag last night. It was announced that a singles match between Rey Mysterio and El Grande Americano will take place at WrestleMania 41.

A former X-Division Champion for TNA, Wilde previously wrestled as DJZ and Zema Ion.

Wilde said in a 2023 interview that his father was a French man who lived in the United States — and his parents got married after trading romantic letters when his father was one of his mother’s suitors as a mail-order bride. His parents were married for five years before his father passed away. Wilde called his Filipina mother’s strength an inspiration, saying she is the bravest woman he knows.