Johnny Swinger
Johnny Swinger
Johnny Swinger
Accomplishments: 4x GCW World Heavyweight Champion, 2x GCW Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (w/ Glenn Gilberti, w/ Bull Buchanon), NWA World Tag Team Championship (w/ Simon Diamond), NWA Mid-American Heavyweight Championship, 2x BCW Can-Am Heavyweight Championship, BCW Can-Am Tag Team Championship (w/ Otis Apollo), CAPW North American Heavyweight Championship, EWF Tag Team Championship (w/ Scott D'Amore), ICW Northern States Championship, MXPW Tag Team Championship (w/ Simon Diamond), MWCW Heavyweight Championship, 4x MCW Tag Team Championship (w/ Scotty Summers), PPCW Tag Team Championship (w/ Scotty Summers)
Bio: After training in Toronto, Ontario, Johnny started wrestling on the independent circuit in 1993 as Johnny Paradise. After he discovered that another wrestler was already using that name, he renamed himself Johnny Hollywood Swinger and began to make a name for himself as a heel as part of Scott D'Amore's "Syndicate" faction in Border City Wrestling.
Swinger began working for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as a jobber in 1997, shortening his ring name to Johnny Swinger. He remained in WCW for three years without receiving a push before joining Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2000. He was placed in a tag team with Simon Diamond by booker Paul Heyman in May 2000, and shortened his name to Swinger. He remained with ECW until the promotion folded in April 2001.
He had a brief stint in the earlier part of 2003 in the World Wrestling All-Stars promotion. On July 9, 2003, Simon and Swinger debuted as a team in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). They feuded with America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) for some time before winning the NWA World Tag Team Championships. The team split on February 18, 2004 when Swinger turned heel by pledging allegiance to Jeff Jarrett, and feuded with one another. Swinger eventually formed a stable known as The New York Connection with Glenn Gilberti, Vito and Trinity.
Swinger signed a developmental deal with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2005, and began training at Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in May 2005. He made his WWE debut on the July 31, 2005 episode of Sunday Night Heat as Johnny Parisi winning his debut match for the company. His ring name was derived from his great uncle Tony Parisi, a former World Wide Wrestling Federation performer. However, since then he was relegated to jobber status, losing every match he was in since that victorious debut.
In September 2005 Parisi was sent to Deep South Wrestling wrestling there for 2 months until being taken off of television in November due to an injury. He came back in December 2005 being sent back to DSW until he was released on June 29, 2006. Parisi has the dubious distinction of being one of the only WWE wrestlers to never appear on camera or wrestle on his brand's main show: RAW.
Johnny Swinger has resurfaced as a TNA agent, at least on trial basis. After being released from the WWE he went back to wrestling on the independent circuit mainly wrestling for Great Championship Wrestling (GCW). He has great title success there winning the GCW Heavyweight title on 4 occasions and the GCW Tag Titles twice, once with Glenn Gilberti and once with Bull Buchanan. Raven came to GCW to help Swinger with his feud against Michaels Inc. in December 2006. After winning the GCW title from Chris Stevens, Swinger turned on Raven and joined Michaels Inc. In January 2007, Swinger began challenging TNA wrestlers to try to come to challenge him in GCW. In response to this, TNA Director of Authority, Jim Cornette came to Phenix City, AL. (GCW's location) to confront Swinger. Swinger and Bull Buchanan were defeated by Raven and David Young on 1/31/07. Afterwards, David Young challenged Swinger for the GCW title. He later lost the title to Scotty Beach in a steel cage match via submission. On 9/15/2007 he defeated Scotty Beach for the GCW title once again. He recently returned to WWE to face Ron Simmons in a match on WWE Heat. On October 14 2007, at TNA's flagship pay-per-view, Bound for Glory, he competed in a dark match with Joey Matthews against the Motor City Machine Guns. Currently he is the GCW World Heavyweight Champion, and is involved in an ongoing feud with David Young.
