El Boricua

Was that 5 times in terms of revenue or 5 times in terms of number of items? Just out of curiosity, how many Cena items are available for sale compared to other wrestlers?

And the shows have been worse off not having Bryan around much because of the extenuating circumstances.

Bray's overdoing the Whole World in His Hands bit.

From November 1997 on the Saturday Night show the day before World War 3, the main event is a Giant vs. Meng match that's short but entertaining. It ends with Barbarian running in for the DQ, followed by Curt Hennig and Vincent attacking the Giant. From there you get the Saturday Night locker room hitting the ring and a brawl just breaks out. You get people like Bobby Eaton, Disorderly Conduct, Villanos, Horshu, Norman Smiley, etc. just brawling. Giant tosses luchadores around, Regal's throwing uppercuts, Eddie Guerrero gets spanked by the Giant. At the end Flair comes out in street clothes and goes after Hennig. It's on Dailymotion if anyone wants to check it out.

All of the Rick Rude stories make me sad that he's not around to appear on the show.

Are they giving him a Texas Ranger gimmick?

They kind of make Rusev look like just another guy sending him out there.

In a culture where "upstanding" behavior such as pooping in people's bags and food is accepted and celebrated, the greatest sin one can make is treat wrestling as a job and/or business, and not as a way of life. The people that do that will always get lambasted and dumped on (whether it's deserved, exaggerated or undeserved) by those that live for it.

If Taker gets inducted, it will be as the headliner for the 2016 class when they're in Texas. Next year it'll be The Rock if he agrees to it.

I think Main Event also airs in syndication, that may be the reason for the commercial breaks.

Godspeed Warrior, and thanks for the memories.

They should have done Cena vs. Taker this year, looks like that ship has sailed judging by this match.

They typically didn't run cards at Hiram Bithorn during the week unless it was a special holiday card (ex. Thanksgiving, Three Kings Day). I got the date from the comment section and... wait, was it you that posted the original date (it's someone with the user name mfarmer99)? Well, I guess it's back to the drawing board for us. Could it have been possible that it was June 9 and not July 9? In Spanish the names are very similar (junio and julio). The only thing I'm reasonably sure of is that the match must have been in the summer of 85 to set up the Aniversario 85 match between Carlos and Abdullah, and that it had to be during his feud with Dory.

The hurricane story is something I heard third hand from people who supposedly knew somebody who asked Carlos Colon about it at one of the house shows many years ago. Carlos may have said that just to get the person to stop asking questions. The most common impression among fans is that they have either lost most/part of their library and/or have the tapes but they are damaged from humidity and can't really be used unless cleaned/restored. To what extent this is true I really don't know. I've had my suspicions that they may have more tapes than they've let on and in better condition than some of the dire accounts have them be, but it's probable they don't have the interest or resources in getting them into workable shape for DVD releases or are afraid to use the tapes they have for fear of wear and tear or breakage. The fact that WWE is considering purchasing it may indicate that it's in better shape than previously believed. I would assume that they must have had someone check the library's condition before agreeing to any purchase (I don't know if this is something they have done with other libraries but it strikes me as the sensible thing to do). I don't believe WWC owns the AWF (All Star) or the IWA libraries. Those, along with WWA (the one from the mid-90's that Undertaker made appearances for), would be interesting because they did feature known WWF guys making appearances for them. For AWF, I remember that Davey Boy Smith and Jake Roberts made appearances for them. IWA had numerous WWF guys appear (as mentioned by Grizzlyedwin). I believe the first ever match between Eddie Guerrero and Super Crazy took place in IWA. I don't know who owns these libraries, but I'd suspect Savio Vega would know about this (he was involved in all three of these companies). I'm certain that Savio and/or Miguel Perez must have access to the IWA stuff, WWC aired mostly IWA footage in the hype video they aired for Slash Venom's return this past week.

I'm thinking that it could just be that Carlos Colon and Victor Jovica are getting up there in age and are considering cashing in while they still can. Honestly, I'd rather have whatever the hell is actually in the library preserved somewhere safe than letting it rot away completely and maybe be lost to some natural disaster (supposedly one of the hurricanes damaged part of their library many years ago) or neglect. Although if the library were a complete mess and didn't have much in it, I don't think WWE would buy it since it's usefulness to them would be limited. I've suspected for a while that there might be more in the library than they've let on in the past. I guess time will tell. I'm hoping they'll look into he All Star and IWA libraries too, those had a few recognizable WWE guys pass through. Anything that ensures these videos end up taken care of, preserved and maybe released at some point in the future is much better than the current state of letting them rot away. Some people might say that it likely means that we won't see any of these footage, but then again, that's basically where we are right now anyway.

Same thing here in Puerto Rico with Miguel Alonso and Pedro Morales being the commentators in 1990 for the Spanish broadcast version of Superstars. I wonder if they would be interested in All Star and/or IWA footage?

Yes it was Puerto Rico El Mundo. I'vee seen many clippings for upcoming events in them. Awesome, good to know. I'm pretty sure that the UPRRP library must have the El Mundo microfiche. Another newspaper that had card ads was El Vocero.

That match had the stipulation of TNT selecting the referee for the title bout. He selected Angel Fashion (the ref with the ponytail). That's why he was turning a blind eye to TNT's shenanigans. TNT basically did an Abdullah the Butcher tribute with that fork. Of course, face ref Pelayito Vazquez got involved and it led to Ray Gonzalez winning the Universal title once more. It's been an interesting month or so in WWC. TNT turned heel and aligned himself with Invader. Carlito's turned face and is now defending his family's honor against Invader, TNT and their goons. After more than 20 years, Miguel Perez made a surprise return to WWC and aligned with Ray and Carlito. Slash Venom made his return to Puerto Rico this past weekend. Right now they're building to a match between Carlito and Invader where Carlito's hair will be on the line.

There's an interview Hugo Savinovich did for the PRWrestling website where he talks about his transition from manager to show host. Hugo mentions that he was already doing the English language version of the show when Rickin Sanchez parted ways with Capitol Sports. Hugo was then told that he was now in charge of the Spanish version hosting duties. This would have been in 1984, so at least from that point there's been an English version. It's also very likely that it goes back before 84, remember that Trinidad was one of the places they would run cards (for example, the Colon/Abdullah match from Trinidad that's on video is likely from 1981) and the language spoken there is English. And I would add 1989 to the year range, there's episodes hosted by Ric St. James and Rip Rogers that are most likely from 89 {that's when Rogers had his extended run).

When El Mundo closed for good around 90-91, the University of Puerto Rico acquired the newspaper archives. They currently own and are the custodians of that historical archive. Last I heard, they were in the process of digitizing the El Mundo archives for their library system. There is some of that work available in the digital library portal of the University of Puerto Rico, but it is not a lot and the focus is more on the photographs and articles. The most likely place to check would be the Rio Piedras campus library, they may have microfiches of the newspaper there. One thing though, a lot of Latin American countries have had a newspaper called El Mundo, it'd be best to make sure to verify which country's El Mundo an archive may refer to. I have a suspicion that the one in Florida might be the Cuban El Mundo.

One thing to keep in mind about WWC, they also had an English language version of the show that aired in certain English speaking markets/countries. Places like the Virgin Islands, Bahamas, New York and others. I do wonder what exactly is there and in what condition. I've heard varying stories regarding the videotape library.

A lot of people on the net have been making the youngster joke about Colon's induction. It's been an interesting response around the message boards, different parts youngster jokes, congratulations, surprise and indignation.

Apparently it'll be Carlito, Eddie and Orlando doing the induction.

I've always though it was Sting vs. Cactus Jack. But the best indicator is what match is highlighted in the ads when space and/or time is at a premium. I just watched a commercial that aired on TBS for the show on June 6th (it's part of a commercial compilation on youtube). In the short ad, they first mentioned the Rude vs. Steamboat Iron Man match, then Sting vs. Cactus. Those were the only two mentioned. If you watch the Beach Blast 92 PPV pre-show, when they do the card rundown, the first match mentioned is Rude vs. Steamboat, followed by Sting vs. Cactus. Going by this, the video box and what others have said about the ads, I'd have to agree that Rude vs. Steamboat seems to be the highlighted match, with Sting vs. Cactus being the semi-main.

That's interesting, I distinctly remember that here in Puerto Rico we paid $29.95 for Wrestlemania 7 the year before.