{"id":61828,"date":"2020-01-28T16:25:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/?p=61828"},"modified":"2020-01-28T16:46:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T21:46:39","slug":"carlos-rocha-the-portuguese-champion-passes-away-at-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/01\/28\/carlos-rocha-the-portuguese-champion-passes-away-at-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Rocha, &#8220;The Portuguese Champion&#8221;, Passes Away at 93"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A veteran of the NWA territories, especially in Canada, Portuguese wrestler <strong>Carlos Rocha<\/strong>, who worked from the 1940s through the 1970s, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. Carlos was the first Portuguese wrestler to work for the WWE (then WWWF).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">According to Lu\u00eds Pires a portuguese journalist now living in New Jersey, Carlos Rocha who for a long time was the only Portuguese-born wrestler to ever work for WWE, passed away on Monday 1\/27.<\/p>\n<p>He was living in Palm Coast, FL and was 93 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Descanse em paz, lenda.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nelson Pereira (@ONelsonPereira) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ONelsonPereira\/status\/1222162860572389377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 28, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Debuting in the 1940s, the Portuguese grappler ultimately made his way to North America, where he worked in several NWA territories, including <strong>Southwest Sports<\/strong> in Dallas, Texas (the precursor to World Class Championship Wrestling). He was also a regular attraction in Europe throughout his formative years. By the early 1960s, he had moved to the United States.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-61831\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/01-457.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"497\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/01-457.jpg 497w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/01-457-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/01-457-480x420.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the early 1970s, he made his way to Canada, where he eventually moved, starting off with <strong>International Wrestling<\/strong> in Montreal, where he won the World Championship, as well as Toronto&#8217;s <strong>Maple Leaf Wrestling<\/strong> and Calgary&#8217;s <strong>Stampede Wrestling<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-61833\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"393\" height=\"551\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/03.jpg 393w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/03-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/03-300x420.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 393px) 100vw, 393px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the late 1970s, he debuted with the<strong> World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF)<\/strong>, where he gained the moniker &#8220;The Portuguese Champion&#8221;, where he briefly feuded with then-WWWF Champion, <strong>&#8220;Superstar&#8221; Billy Graham<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-61832\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"356\" height=\"453\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/02.jpg 356w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/02-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/01\/02-330x420.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 356px) 100vw, 356px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Carlos Rocha had disappeared from the wrestling world by the 1980s and following a 30-year career as one of the international great journeymen. The staff at Last Word on Pro Wrestling extends its most sincere condolences to the entire Rocha family, as well as his friends, fans, and peers.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lastwordonprowrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A veteran of the NWA territories, especially in Canada, Portuguese wrestler Carlos Rocha, who worked from the 1940s through the 1970s, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. Carlos was the first Portuguese wrestler to work for the WWE (then WWWF). According to Lu\u00eds Pires a portuguese journalist now living in New Jersey, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":61830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547,6],"tags":[6034],"class_list":["post-61828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-memorium","category-north-america","tag-carlos-rocha"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}