Savio Vega‘s IWA promotion in Puerto Rico is set to make its iPPV debut this coming Saturday with La Gran Amenaza, translated to English as “The Great Threat”. Promoted since February 2020, this has to be the event with the longest promotion period before finally happening in the history of wrestling. It was initially planned to take place in April of 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. However, IWA Puerto Rico never stopped proclaiming that this event was coming, even when it was literally impossible.
La Gran Amenaza was originally scheduled for late June. However, again, it had to be delayed when the World Wrestling Council simply went completely silent in the midst of the Latin American Wrestling Entertainment announcement. That, along with one of the primary wrestlers of the IWA bowing out to retire in order to focus on his family, made for a card that has been very perplexing. However, the IWA’s television is known far more for its “drama-baiting” style rather than trying to tell consistent stories with its wrestlers.
¿Raymond Arrieta en #LaGranAmenaza😂? ¿Con Fernando Tonos? Este sábado vive la #ExperienciaVIP con #SavioVega en #24Marketplace. Boletos a la venta en https://t.co/5Mj2zJ7tYJ pic.twitter.com/Vgw04YUAIy
— IWA Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 (@IWAPuertoRico) July 28, 2021
What to Know About La Gran Amenaza
The event was taped at an undisclosed time at Marketplace 24, which happens to be where the WWC was taping for the first quarter of the year before going AWOL with the aforementioned LAWE announcement.
The IWA is offering this iPPV within their own website at $20 (iwapuertorico.com/ippv). However, they are also offering a unique VIP Experience package where viewers can watch the pay-per-view in a theater setting with Savio Vega on location. However, the IWA can’t help themselves, so they’ve opted to run an angle to go with what is basically a closed-circuit seating event. Savio’s opponent on the PPV, Manny Ferno, and corrupt authority figure (the island loves the trope), Fernando Tonos plan to pay eulogy to Vega’s career, not during the taped event but live at the Warehouse 24 showing. Simply put, fans are to sit and watch a pre-taped event with Vega. With this comes its own angle, which begs the question: how will this work?
La Gran Amenaza Full Card
CWS Championship: Super Georgie (c) vs Smoke
This match is more of a ‘thank you’ note for Colombian Wrestling Superstars for letting the IWA use their school to make matches. Super Georgie is one of the island’s premier trainers as explained in our CWA Anniversary preview. His opponent, Smoke, has been a wrestler for CWS for a long time, being a former champion in his own way. The match is more of an avenue to plug CWS and their own set of shows airing on Facebook.
Gauntlet Match for the Chicky Starr Cup:
Vassago vs Adam Riggs vs Aiden Grimm vs Anormal Voltech vs Bolo The Red Bulldog
This is a somewhat frustrating match. Most of the mid-card has seemingly been tossed into a random gauntlet match for a prize making its debut here. Aiden Grimm should be the favorite, being one of the few non-main event stars that the company tends to try to push while everyone else has blended into the background. This match is much more about its potential follow-up, as the prize is supposed to honor one of the most beloved heels in the history of Puerto Rico in Chicky Starr, who can very well give the rub to the winner here.
Open Challenge for the IWA World Tag Team Championship:
Los Fugitivos (Lynx & Niche) (c) vs ??? & ???
This was originally scheduled as the IWA World Tag Team Champions Los Fugitivos vs the WWC World Tag Team Champions La Formula (Steve Joel & Jay Velez). However, WWC simply stopped communicating. However, just this past Saturday, WWC posted their first piece of original content in a long time. This happened to be their tag team titleholders asking where all the competition went. They claimed they held the most important tag team titles on the island. The timing seems too perfect to be a coincidence. If it isn’t, the likely top candidates out there are the Melendez Cousins, a very talented duo that just recently returned to the island. Recently, they’ve been making big waves on the lower-end promotions of Puerto Rico.
“5 Star Match” for the IWA World Heavyweight Championship:
Mr. Big (c) vs Spectro vs Joe Bravo vs Lightning vs Jay-Cobs
The four challengers in this contest are former IWA World Heavyweight Champions. However, Jay-Cobs’s reign is not officially recognized in storyline; he simply gifted himself the title years ago before losing it right away. Jay-Cobs versus Mr. Big was the primary storyline; Jay-Cobs wanted to accept Mr. Big’s open challenge. However, the latter denied the challenger, not seeing him as worthy. Eventually, Mr. Big kept receiving so many challenges that he simply declared “bring them all on,” having this match booked. It’s promoted as a “5 Star Match” in reference to the number of participants. It’s also been stated that “the doors are open for any other former IWA World Heavyweight Champions.”
IWA Caribbean Heavyweight Champion, King Muertes, who is recognized here as the once top star of the IWA, Ricky Banderas, has declared his intention to go after the world title. However, the IWA hasn’t really formalized if he will participate in the match. The company left matters up in the air for the sake of speculation. There’s certainly a large list of former champions that the company can also surprise with if need be.
Savio Vega vs IWA Intercontinental Champion Manny Ferno & Other Matches to Be Determined
This is a confusing main event. Originally, it was slated to be Manny Ferno vs Electro for the IWA Intercontinental Championship. However, in the long wait to prepare this show, both parties went back and forth about papers, rights, and many contract cliches. Eventually, Electro’s wife became pregnant and gave birth to a child. This led to Electro announcing his retirement and being taken out of this storyline. Instead, the program shifted to an ongoing feud since 2017 and started in the World Wrestling League.
Savio Vega has been having a long battle with Manny Ferno over control of whichever promotion they are in. The IWA’s real-life benefactor, former senator Fernando Tonos, betrayed long-time friend Vega to side with Ferno. Even more chatter about contracts has gone by. The result is this main event. Here, Vega alone must face Ferno and however many tag team partners he can bring in.
These two have wrestled many times already, wagering the ownership of WWL once. They wrestled their first one-on-one match on IWA’s re-launch event, facing off inside a Deathrider Dome in 2019. We’ll see the tag team partners Ferno brings.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. Learn more about the IWA Puerto Rico on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
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