Latin American Wrestling Entertainment. LAWE was a wrestling company that was incorporated officially on March 11, 2021 and unveiled officially in early July of the same year. At first, it was structured with the intention of being a governing body between various wrestling promotions. At the time of incorporation, the International Wrestling Association (IWA) and World Wrestling Council (WWC) were in the midst of starting a working agreement to exchange talents. This would be, on paper, the company to mediate the two, and possibly other wrestling companies. But IWA bowed out of the idea.
Instead, LAWE attempted to purchase WWC in order to re-structure and modernize the 50-year-old promotion under the leadership of the second generation of the Colón family. Carlito, Eddie and Stacy, the children of WWE Hall Of Famer Carlos Colón, and his nephew Orlando. But that plan also fell through. As WWC owner Victor Jovica instead opted to continue WWC and in the midst, a rupture in the family saw Carlito, Stacy and Eddie all resign from LAWE and go back to WWC. Leaving Orlando and his father Jose Colón to manage LAWE.
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From there, the father/son duo recruited former World Wrestling League alumni and producers while also investing in modern production. The result came on November 20, 2021 with the event Origenes (Origins). Headlined by the NWA World Tag Team Champions La Rebellion vs AEW World Tag Team Champions The Lucha Bros, the event was a massive success. As matches up and down the card left a massive impression on the surprisingly young core audience LAWE was able to develop with it’s rather grounded, but realistic storytelling.
As time passed, the company continued to see success, but also faced struggles. Creative plans constantly fell due to injuries, international talents not being able to appear and most notably, venues cancelling their dates. This made it very difficult for the promising company to truly get off the ground if it could not consistently deliver on promised events and capitalize on its hungry audience. Adding to that, was its storytelling. Gone quickly was the grounded and realistic style of profiling wrestlers and deriving stories from there. In its place came the more constant and repetitive story beats of heel GM’s and an over-reliance on whoever was the promotion’s top heel. A practice that has been painfully common since the 90s.
On September 17, 2022, Hurricane Fiona struck the island of Puerto Rico, leaving a large amount of damage. But nowhere near what Hurricane Maria had left in 2017. So wrestling was able to pick in about a month. However, LAWE was nowhere to be seen. Nothing but “just wait and see” from one of its creative heads, Dennis Rivera, via his weekly podcast, “La Vuelta”.
Their next event came in December, 2022. Titled End Of The Line. It promised to resume all the already started stories. It did. But after that…. Well, it’s the start of April. And there has not been a peep from the company since.
What happened? As 2023 started, wrestlers contracted to LAWE began to express anger at the lack of pay. LAWE had strived to actually bring back the contracted structure of pro wrestling to the island. As such, wrestlers and employees had a weekly guarantee. It stopped. Many of its stars began to appear in other promotions. Initially, there were claims that LAWE was loosening their exclusivity. But as time passed, it became obvious. LAWE had no money. Their World Champion Pedro Portillo III and top babyface Mike Mendoza are now top stars for IWA. Portillo in particular currently being under a mask. While Mendoza is set to face current World Champion, John Hawkings.
It’s a genuine mystery how things wound up being so poorly handled. As both Orlando and father Jose Colón are long-standing accountants. Jose in particular having been WWC’s accountant since the ’70s. While events did have to be postponed and the island’s infrastructure being rattled by natural disasters caused issues, lack of income should not have been an issue. As the company had launched their LAWE OnDemand subscription service and was in fact seeing a respectable amount of success. Ensuring a small, monthly stream of earnings that no other promotion in the island could boast about.
LAWE’s collapse is an especially painful one. As the company very much look to modernize pro wrestling for the island. From higher-quality production to a successful streaming service and higher-end storytelling, it very well could’ve been the bridge for Puerto Rico to reach the rest of the wrestling world.
This is where LAWE’s ring sits now
On the parking lot of a car dealer. Used as a joke for promotion. How sad.
