World Wrestling Entertainment closed a deal last month to acquire the video library for World Wrestling Council (WWC), the famed Puerto Rican promotion owned by WWE Hall of Famer Carlos Colon and Victor Jovia.
WWC was launched in 1983 by Colon, Jovica and the late Gorilla Monsoon and has regularly toured the Island and airs a weekly TV series Super Estrella. The promotion culminates every year with an Anniversario event, bringing in outside name talents.
A huge cavalcade of names has worked for the promotion over the years, especially in the 1980s when WWC was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, including the late Bruiser Brody, Ric Flair, Abdullah the Butcher, The Funks, Savio Vega (aka TNT), Hurricane Castillo Jr., Hercules Ayala, The Road Warriors, Dutch Mantel, Stan Hansen, Chicky Starr, Randy Savage, Pedro Morales, Rick Martel, Miguel Perez and many, many others.
The promotion was renowned for its violent, bloody brawling and incredible crowd heat during its glory era in the ‘80s. The reputation of the promotion took a massive hit in the wake of the murder of Bruiser Brody, who was stabbed by Jose Gonzales aka Invader 1, the booker at the time, backstage at an event in Bayamon, dying hours later. Gonzales was later found not guilty at trial, a moment in history that has led to a lot of allegations regarding the case that still exist today, as recently documented in the Highspots Wrestling Network documentary on Bruiser Brody.
Brody’s murder led to an exodus of major American talents from working on the Island, although some names did come back over time. One would think WWE will be sensitive to how material related to Brody is utilized, given the circumstances of his death.
The acquisition was a long time coming. The library was believed to have been one of the largest and oldest out there that was still available on the open market, potentially going back to 1983 with live event, TV and home video material. WWE inducted Carlos Colon into their Hall of Fame in 2014. There was speculation coming out of that induction that the company would acquire the WWC tape library as part of that deal, but the purchase, for whatever reason, never took place. Instead, the two sides spoke on and off for years about an acquisition before a deal was finally consumated last month when WWE officials went to Puerto Rico to take possession.
WWE has already shipped the library to Stamford, CT. They will be working on preparing it for future usage on the WWE Network, DVDs, etc. but there is no timetable on when any of the material may pop up under WWE’s auspices as obviously they need to clean up and digitize the footage.
People have been told that there is a portion of the tape library that was impacted by the effects of Hurricane Maria, which knocked out all power on the Island. It's possible that may cause a delay in preparing the WWC content as well. We have not been able to confirm how much of the library may have been damaged but were told WWE was aware of the issues when they made the decision to acquire the library.
The WWC acquisition is the first known WWE purchase of a tape library since they acquired the TV episodes of Les Thatcher’s HWA promotion several years ago. As we have previously reported, the company has been seeking to acquire content to grow their library as they continue to research and strategize plans to launch a tiered system for the WWE Network streaming service.
The WWC promotion still produces TV weekly on WAPA-TV out of San Juan and runs regularly in Puerto Rico.
