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- Manuel Gonzalez Puerto Rico has been a hot bed for wrestling since the late 50's. Although there is virtually no information available from this era, it is known that several wrestlers from the East Coast traveled to Puerto Rico. However, in the late 60's, Florida promoter Clarence Luttrell traveled to Puerto Rico to present shows on a biweekly or sometimes monthly basis. Crowds ranged from a few thousand in some shows to over 8000 for a show in 1970. Luttrell primarily used the stars of the NWA Florida region for these shows. I know he used Jack Brisco, Missouri Mauler, Great Mephisto, Great Malenko, Dante, Dale Lewis, Hiro Matsuda, Ciclón Negro, Dan Curtis, Thunderbolt Patterson, Dory Funk, and a lot more that I don't mention because I would need a few more paragraphs. Luttrell also used, for heavy drawing power, the Mexican wrestler Jose Lothario, who was billed as an 'Adoptive Son of Puerto Rico'. He rarely used local wrestlers and that is why in 1973, Carlos Colón, Victor Jovica and Gorilla Monsoon began what is known today as the WWC (Capitol Sports Promotions). Although in Puerto Rican wrestling history there have been a few other promotions, WWC has been strong with fans since its beginning in late 1973. And though things have occurred, beginning with the death of Bruiser Brody in 1988, WWC has survived. Throughouot some bad years, WWC still remains as the number one promotion on the island even though they've faced strong competition in the 90's with other promotions that have used WWF wrestlers for attraction. In the beginning, as with most of the promotions, fans didn't follow the WWC but in mid 1974 through the end of the decade, the promotion began doing well using local talent such as Carlos Colón, José Rivera, Miguel Pérez, Hércules Ayala, Invader 1 (aka José González, real name José Huertas) and local foreign talent such as Huracán Castillo and Maravilla (Raoul Castillo). WWC used mainly indy stars and wrestlers from the Canadian rings, such as Ernie Ladd, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Tor Kamata, Odd Job Tosh Togo, Eric The Red, Dick Steinborn, The Infernos, The Kangaroos, Ox Baker, Abdullah The Butcher, Pampero Firpo, Toru Tanaka, Higo Hamaguchi, Gordon Nelson, Antonino Rocca, Bruno Sanmmartino, Gil Hayes, Hartford Love, Jim Dalton, Bruce Swayze, Pierre Martel (Frenchy Martin), Michel Martel (who died after a match in Puerto Rico in 1978), Daniel Martel (Danny Babitch), Afa & Sika, Jack Evans, Larry Sharpe and many more. More...
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