As you may have already have noticed, Super Luchas this morning gave the news that former WWE Tag Team Champions and pair of cousins, The Colons, were asking WWE for their releases. Apparently this al came to light when the T-Shirt making company Pro Wrestling Tees, revealed a T-Shirt design for Orlando Colon, which is the wrestling name of Epico outside of WWE. The site posted on their Twitter page, that the Orlando Colon shirt was already on sale in Pro Wrestling Tees. This intensified the speculation, because it is well known that WWE wrestler’s merchandise is handle by the WWE and no other company. To add more to the reports, WWC, the company owned by Puerto Rican legend and WWE Hall of Famer Carlos Colon, who is the father of Primo Colon and uncle of Epico, retweeted the article of Super Luchas.
How did we get here?
For a while now, we have seen WWE misuse the Colons in various ways. The Tag Team originally started without Epico – it was Carlito with his brother Primo who started the pairing. They had a good run from 2008-2009, with them becoming Undisputed Tag Team Champions when they beat Morrison and Miz for the Titles at Wrestlemania XXV. The team would later be split, with Carlito later being released from the company for some violations of the anti-doping policies.
It was in 2011 that we would see the formation of the new pairing, with Epico coming up from developmental and uniting with his cousin Primo to form the Colons. Once again, the pair will go on to have a good run, with them in January beating Air Boom (Matt Sydal/Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston) to win the Tag Titles, but again, just like in the last run, the team would lose the titles and never recover them back. The team went on to face a lot of changes.
In typical WWE fashion, the company overlooked the pedigree and tradition that the team brought to the table, and repackage them into the infamous Matadores. The team was an insult in a way, with WWE saying that they were from Spain, the country that enslaved Puerto Ricans indigenous and took their lands and, the sheer insistence of them pushing us to forget that behind the mask were the Colons. The team would start again hot, but later fail in the hunt for the tag team championships. They would go on to be relegated to the bottom of the card.
It has been since then been that way. Each time the Puerto Rican natives where repackaged, WWE would push them for a short time and then drop them to jobbers’ status. These changes came too many times, that when WWE gave them their last gimmicks, which it was supposed to be the one that they never should have drop (The Colons), the fans weren’t interest in them. Even in a house show in San Juan, Puerto Rico, WWE booked the 4-way tag team match to have The Usos pin the Colons in their own Country. It seems something normal for some fans, but in Puerto Rico? Where Carlos Colon was the biggest draw ever? They made the Colons lose!
The reasons are clear on why the Colons would want a release. They are never used and when they are, WWE just drops the ball. There are some theories on why WWE kept the Colons for long. Some say that it is because of Vince’s wishes to acquire WWC’s library from Carlos Colon (the WWE Hall of Fame induction of Carlos Colon was to entice that). Some claim that it because WWE wanted to bring back Carlito, but again, that was tried various time in 2015 (that’s why Alberto del Rio came back) and before. Others think that is because WWE has everything done by Carlos Colon when they do house shows in the island, but they fail to mention that last June, when WWE came to do their house show in San Juan (in front of 11,500 fans), Colon had little-to-zero involvement in the rent for the Arena or the promotion for the event.
What’s next for the Colons?
If in fact the reports are true and the Colons get to be release, the whole scenery of wrestling in the island will change drastically. For a while now, WWC has had a bad run in drawing people to their shows and to get the attention of the wrestling scene in Puerto Rico. The company who bet on their veterans this past spring, has a decreasing crowd in their show, with them barely averaging 350 fans per show. The wrestling scene in the island has been taken by the rival company, the World Wrestling League (WWL). Savio Vega’s promotion has the fans and the mainstream media’s attention in the island.
The coming of the Colons could change that. Even though Carlito still wrestles in WWC, his appearances have decrease a lot, with his international booking’s increasing a lot recently. Having the Colons in WWC once again gives the company a fighting chance and instead of one big former WWE and Colon family star, WWC could have 3 stars of the same kind. This would mean new angles, different types of matchup, especially with Orlando (Epico), who is very versatile with his gimmick down in the island. The coming of the former Tag Champions could easily increase their attendance to a least 600 people per show.
Finally, they could do what some people like Carlito, Del Rio and Cody have done, and that is getting to book internationally at their own paste and time. If the Colons invest on their indie career they could prove to WWE how wrong they were and increase their stock.
