El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: Introduction

EB: It’s interesting how our journeys as wrestling fans can be with regards to the things we share in common and the things we do not. We first come across this weird and amazing world of pro wrestling either by accident or by someone we know introducing us to it. Maybe it’s a family member or friend that watches and you happen to watch it along with them. Maybe you happened to be changing channels on the tv and happened across one of the wrestling programs you had access to (I fall into this group). No matter how your wrestling fan journey started, after that initial intro to pro wrestling, it’s usually shaped by two factors: interest in seeking more out and opportunity based on what you have access to. Regardless of when or where our wrestling fan journeys started, we all have that in common.
My wrestling fan journey started three and half decades ago when I would stumble every now and then upon wrestling on TV. Scattered moments and episodes from the mid to late 80s World Wrestling Federation. A random weeknight when I happened to come across a cool looking face painted wrestler from Japan in the ring, with someone running in and a failed fireball attack occurring, causing me to make a mental note of the channel and time, and then being disappointed when I checked the next week and wrestling wasn’t on (I didn’t know about the Clash of the Champions yet). Looking back, elementary school me wasn’t very good at remembering when or where the wrestling programs were on (I eventually did figure it out though). It was around 1990 that interest and opportunity came together for me, and I basically became an avid wrestling fan.

But while my wrestling fan journey shares that experience with many who watched the then WWF and WCW throughout the 90s, there is one key difference in my case. Growing up in Puerto Rico, I also would every now and then come across the local wrestling we had. While not a consistent viewer, I would become familiar with several of the local wrestling personalities, due to those sporadic viewings and also simply due to the local culture. I mean, when you have wrestlers in commercials, fast food promotional tie-ins (buy the Lucha Bucket from KFC and get a free wrestler poster!) and even as part of the local vernacular (‘Estas bregando a la Chicky Starr’), it’s hard not to be aware. I knew about Carlos Colon, the Invaders, Chicky Starr, Abdullah the Butcher and the voice of Hugo Savinovich doing the card rundowns.  Later, when I committed to being an avid wrestling watcher sometime in 1990, I also started regularly watching the local Puerto Rico wrestling and became familiar with even more names such as TNT, the Caribbean Express and others. From then on, I remained an avid watcher of the local wrestling heroes and villains all the way through college.

When I got online, my wrestling fan journey changed. It was during the middle of the Monday Night Wars, wrestling was in a peak period and there was this sense of finding other fans with similar interests to have a sort of kinship in enjoying (or being aggravated by) this world of pro wrestling. Initially one would gravitate to the news websites and message boards your web browser of choice would point you towards. But bit by bit, opportunity expanded as I kept discovering the different corners of wrestling related websites. Oh and what sights did I see. Different tape trader websites with listings of matches and angles that would boggle the mind since all I knew of certain wrestlers was what I had seen of them (“Wait, these two faced off where?”). You could spend a good chunk of your day just looking through John McAdam’s listings on his website. I’d see reports about wrestling from other countries such as Japan and Mexico and about the U.S. indie scene (thank you DVDVR). I’d find discussions about the current events in the major U.S. companies and even backstage rumors that made you feel like you were in on something. My interest met an increase in opportunity and a whole new world of discovery and discussion opened for me. Well, sort of.

You see, while I was excited about all of the wrestling areas I could discover, there was still interest on my part in talking about Puerto Rican wrestling and even learning about what had happened before I became a fan. But for various reasons, conversation about Puerto Rican wrestling was not exactly abundant. You had the footage accessibility issues (I could watch it on local TV, not the case for many of the other online fans), language issues (in Spanish), lack of familiarity with wrestlers or the style, and likely the biggest issue, all anyone really seemed to know or cared to know about Puerto Rican wrestling was the very unfortunate and tragic incident of Bruiser Brody being stabbed and killed in Puerto Rico. In the few places where the topic of Puerto Rico was brought up, the conversation would sooner or later circle back to Brody’s death and a vitriolic conversation would usually ensue. After seeing that dynamic play out a few times, I didn’t want to wade in. I was in no mood to feel and have to converse like I was being put on trial for liking Puerto Rican wrestling.

Because of that, I took to the idea of just being a lurker and not really getting into wrestling message board discussions because I felt (as weird as it may sound to you) that any conversations regarding Puerto Rican wrestling would sooner or later just circle back to that one topic. I just didn’t want to end up engaging in any heated, vitriolic discussion whenever the topic of Puerto Rican wrestling would come up. So I just didn’t engage. At all. For quite a few years, I just read and lurked.  Until about ten years ago when I saw a thread over at ProWrestlingOnly titled Puerto Rico Wrestling. I clicked on it and discovered that there were posters who were watching different matches from Puerto Rico and reviewing them based on whatever merits (if any) they found them to have. It was a case of people giving the wrestling I had grown up with a chance absent of whatever baggage it may carry and deciding if they liked it or not based on the wrestling itself. As I read the different posts, I started talking to myself about some background or context info that would help clear up some of the questions I was seeing. After about a week of this, I decided to sign up and started posting what I could offer for context and engaged in the discussion.  And my wrestling fan journey changed once more.

For the past decade I have been blessed by my decision to engage instead of lurking. I have learned a lot more about this pastime and hobby that is shared by many others. I have made connections and friends, had rewarding and sometimes annoying discussions, but have been enriched by the experience. It’s been a decade of providing context and background when possible about Puerto Rican wrestling, of helping out with footage projects and even appearing on a podcast or two.  And now, it is one such conversation about Puerto Rican wrestling that brings us here. A question about what my top matches from post 1990 Puerto Rico would be was thrown my way. It was a question I had some struggle finding a clear answer to, because it has been quite a while since I’ve really sat down and watched wrestling from that time. Memory can get fuzzy, certain details can be forgotten and mixed up, and there’s no abundant source of footage or reference to refresh the memory. But an idea evolved from that. It might be fun to go back and revisit the wrestling from that time I became a fan. And since I’m going to do that, why not document it? For the past decade I’ve enjoyed providing context when possible about Puerto Rican wrestling and just engaging with other fans. Time to take the next step in that regard.

So we welcome you to El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, where we are going to take a journey, one where hopefully we’ll learn and discover (or rediscover in my case) what exactly was happening in Puerto Rican wrestling. Our goal is to take a weekly look at the scene in Puerto Rico on a mostly chronological basis, with 1990 as our starting point. Our journey won’t be limited to just this time period though, at certain points we will also reach back to the 80s as well, since despite it being better documented there is still an opportunity to learn and discover there. But our overall goal is to give anyone with interest the opportunity at checking out Puerto Rican wrestling. If you end up liking it, great! And if you find that it’s not for you, that’s also okay, at least you gave it a chance. Our footage journey won’t be perfect, it won’t be complete since there’s still a lot of gaps in what’s available, but it will be an honest and hopefully engaging effort on our part. I have a great tag partner in Matt D for this journey and I hope you’ll enjoy coming along with us.

MD: My overall wrestling journey is not dissimilar to Esteban’s in that 1990 was my key year and that there was a similar sense of being introduced to a broader world. For me, on top of the wrestling itself, I had the WWF Superstars annual magazine with bios of all the wrestlers or the WCW Trading cards as well. Also, I was first exposed to Puerto Rican wrestling through that same thread on PWO, just from the other side. From there and the subsequent DVDVR 80s set, I learned to appreciate Invader 1’s selling, the Colon vs Hansen feud, or how a team like the Rock’n’Roll RPMs could really shine if just given the opportunity. Looking from the outside in and trying to make sense of it relative to the broader spectrum of pro wrestling, Puerto Rico was something of a Memphis even farther south mixed with a hint of lucha: big bloody brawls with riotous crowds, brutal beatdowns, huge comebacks, visceral stakes. At least in our circles, we developed a sort of ‘canon’ that was only further codified through the 80s set. 

For the most part, however, that canon doesn’t reach into the 90s and it certainly doesn’t reach into the years that follow. A lot of the elements I mentioned in the last paragraph are theoretically timeless; they draw upon primal emotions and are less reliant upon athleticism than other elements of wrestling. If you can throw a great working punch at 25, it’ll probably still look great at 55. If you’ve mastered how to move hearts and minds through your selling, getting older only gives you a deeper well of sympathy to draw upon. As Phil would be quick to remind all of us, blood is forever. Moreover, while some of the channels that footage was preserved and disseminated in the 80s didn’t make it into the next decade, technological advancements in recording probably counterbalanced that to a degree. Footage does exist. It’s just a matter of finding a guide through it, and we are very lucky to have Esteban as our guide here, and then doing the legwork of watching and talking about matches.

I’m hoping through this effort we can add to the canon, unveil new epic stories and matches, and light a path into years that are a little less traveled. While this isn’t the blind leap of faith that Graham and I have made with Panama, I know I’ll be building on what familiarity I do have and learning new things every week and I hope that everyone who reads this will as well.

EB: With all that said, next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, we start our journey a few months before 1990 in order to set the scene. Get ready to meet many of the wrestlers and personalities we’ll be following throughout this journey and to learn a bit about Puerto Rico. So come as you are and bring one item of your choice as we head back to August 1989 and witness a match type that is a semi-regular occurrence in Puerto Rico.

El Deporte de las Mil Emociones Master List