The World Wrestling Council (WWC) is Puerto Rico's main professional wrestling promotion.
History[]
Capitol Sports Promotions, with Carlos Colón, Victor Jovica and Gorilla Monsoon as promoters/co-owners of the organization, was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) until late 1988, when Gorilla Monsoon left. The company then went bankrupt (as confirmed by Victor Quiñones in an interview with prwrestling.com). Following this, Thomas Collado became the owner in 1976, before Carlos Colon and Victor Jovica.
Capitol Sports Promotions gained fame in Puerto Rican homes soon after their TV show, Super Estrellas de la Lucha Libre, went on-air every weekend on channel 4, WAPA-TV. The taped show is still aired on weekends (both Saturday and Sunday for two hours until March 2008 when it was reduced to one hour on both Saturdays and Sundays due to declining ratings). From 1973 to 1980 it aired on channel 11 ( "Telecadena Perez Perry", then on "Teleonce" after the before mentioned went off the air), on channel 7 on Sunday evenings at 6pm and on "Telemundo" on Saturday mornings at 10am.
Capitol Sports Promotions began touring all over the island, and with the golden era of boxing in Puerto Rico limited only to Ponce and the metropolitan area of Puerto Rico, Capitol Sports Promotions took their shows to many, inner country towns where people were not used to seeing live in-ring sports events. As a result, Capitol's shows usually filled the smaller town arenas.
Early stars, apart from Colon, included Barrabas, El Tigre Perez, Hugo Savinovich, Gorilla Monsoon, Huracan Castillo and others. Famous wrestling tag-teams included Los Super Medicos, Los Invaders and others.
Many American stars came to Puerto Rico to wrestle for Capitol Sports Promotions during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Such were the cases of Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Bruiser Brody, Dory Funk, Jr., Dutch Mantell and others.
In 1983, Rickin Sanchez had taken over as Capitol's main promoter, as well as becoming one of the organization's broadcasters on the television shows. He was joined by the already retired Savinovich, to form one of Puerto Rico's most famous broadcasting duos in history, which complemented the narrations of the matches by Joaquin Padin JR. Some time later, Rickin Sanchez (and his production company R & F Television) left the production of "Super Estrellas" due to some disagreements with the ownership of WWC after these events Hugo Savinovich became the main host of the programs.
By the mid 1990s, the organization changed its official name to World Wrestling Council. Women also began to have an ever increasing presence in the organization during that decade.
With the turn of the century came some changes that almost destroyed the franchise. A small promotion called International Wrestling Association, promoted by Victor Quinones, became WWC's biggest competitor when it made an alliance with wrestling giant WWF which in turn brought American superstars to IWA. Ray Gonzales resigned because he hadn't been paid for 6 months which resulted in him joining rival IWA.
Since then Puerto Rican wrestling talent has jumped from the WWC to the IWA and vice versa. In an interview, Quiñones said that from 2002-2005 the almost bankrupt WWC borrowed money from him to help pay debts.
Championships[]
Active[]
- WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship
- WWC Puerto Rico Championship
- WWC World Tag Team Championship
- WWC Junior Heavyweight Championship
Defunct and inactive[]
- WWC Caribbean Tag Team Championship
- WWC Dominican Republic Heavyweight Championship
- WWC Hardcore Championship
- WWC Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship
- WWC North American Heavyweight Championship
- NWA North American Tag Team Championship (Puerto Rico/WWC version)
- Trinidad & Tobago Heavyweight Championship
- Trinidad & Tobago Tag Team Championship
- WWC Latin American Heavyweight Championship.
- WWC Television Championship
- WWC Women's Championship
- WWC Caribbean Heavyweight Championship