Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the World Wrestling Council established?
The World Wrestling Council (WWC) is a professional wrestling promotion based in Puerto Rico. It was originally established as Capitol Sports Promotions in 1973 by Carlos Colón Sr., Victor Jovica, and Gorilla Monsoon. It was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance until 1988. By the mid-1990s, the promotion had changed its name to the World Wrestling Council.
It was in Puerto Rico, however, where The Mercenaries gained the greatest success, when his friends Carlos Colon and Victor Rivera established the World Wrestling Council the previous year. Signing with the promotion in early 1975, he and Martin would defeat Vikingo and Ciclon Sudamericano for the WWC North American Tag Team Championship in Caguas, Puerto Rico on April 8, 1975. Feuding with Jose Rivera and Carlos Colon during the next several months, he and Martin remained the top ""heels"" in the promotion headlining the majority of the WWC events with Rivera and Colon for much of the year. In one of the biggest cards of the year, which featured the return of WWC mainstays Eric the Red, Bob Ellis and Dick Steinborn, the Martel brothers lost a hair vs. hair match to Jose Rivera and Carlos Colon on May 31, 1975. They would also be allied with Kurt Von Hess for a short time while he toured Puerto Rico during the summer.
Vincent James McMahon (July 6, 1914 – May 24, 1984), also known as Vince McMahon Sr., was an American professional wrestling promoter. He is best known for running the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (subsequently renamed as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) and World Wrestling Federation (WWF) during his tenure, and currently named WWE) from 1954 to 1982, and fathering his successor, Vince McMahon.
The World Heavyweight Championship was established in 2002 as a second world championship in WWE during the time of the first brand extension. During this period, the World Heavyweight Championship would be the primary championship for either the Raw or Smackdown brand, with the WWE Championship on the other. The brand extension ended in 2011, allowing both championships to appear on both shows. On December 15, 2013, World Heavyweight Champion John Cena faced WWE Champion Randy Orton in a match at , where the World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship as Orton defeated Cena. At the event, it was announced that the unified titles would be called the "WWE World Heavyweight Championship". WWE officially recognized Orton as the final World Heavyweight Champion, and retired the title.
From 1959 to 1972, the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance (JWA), run by Rikidōzan, held a tournament called World League (also known as the "World Big League"), which featured both Japanese and foreign professional wrestlers. Rikidōzan himself dominated the annual tournament early on, however, after his death in 1963, the tournament was won six times by Giant Baba and once by Antonio Inoki. JWA folded shortly after both Baba and Inoki left the promotion to create All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), respectively. Both men took the concept of World League with them to their new promotions, with Baba creating the "Champion Carnival" in 1973 and Inoki creating the World League in 1974, later renaming it G1 Climax.
The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its debut in WWE.
WWE & Company is a fashion, beauty and lifestyle technology company specialising in the development of mobile, cloud-based, O2O commerce enterprise technologies, targeting the mainland Chinese consumers. WWE is a joint venture between The Wharf (Holdings) Limited (), Walton Brown Group (a company of The Lane Crawford Joyce Group), and eCargo Holdings Limited (ASX:ECG), initially capitalised at RMB 300 million. WWE & Company was founded and led by Thomson Cheng, President of Walton Brown, and Christopher Lau, CEO and Founder of ECG, as co-CEOs in Hong Kong. 
Walton Brown and ECG jointly invested RMB 150 million for an initial 50% equity interest and The Wharf (Holdings) Limited, which operates Harbour City and Times Square in Hong Kong, will co-invest another RMB 150 million for a 50% equity interest through Novel Colour, a wholly owned subsidiary.
In the first half of 1996, the World Wrestling Association emerged in Puerto Rico, becoming the direct competition to WWC. The booking for the promotion was done by Félix López and Juan Rivera, who became the first WWA World Heavyweight Champion by defeating Goldust on August 31, 1996. Besides Rivera and Dustin Rhodes, the promotion featured the participation of other WWF talents including Jake Roberts, Fred Ottman, The Undertaker, Triple H, Bam Bam Bigelow, Charles Wright and Yokozuna. Its roster was completed by other talents from the independent circuits of Puerto Rico and Florida. In December 1996, the WWA held a match between Rico Casanova and Sid Vicious for the WWF Championship in a show held at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. On April 23, 1997, Rivera defeated Ramón Álvarez to win the WWA Puerto Rico Heavyweight Championship. However, the promotion closed in June of that year. The last of the Colón-Abdullah matches took place in 1997, when Colón won a "loser leaves Puerto Rico" contest. This banishment was short-lived, since he was brought in again and both teamed again one last time. By this time, Colón's popularity had started flailing and González was again promoted to the main event scene after performing several years in the midcard. WWC also contracted Laureano again and resumed the feud with Huertas-González. Despite this, he was later used to enhance the career of Ray González. A storyline was created where Colón would train González and help him win the Universal Championship a second time. He dropped the championship to Milton Adomo by accepting a challenge that Colón opposed. This marked the beginning of Ray González's first heel turn. After blaming Colón for losing the championship, he defeated all of the midcard face (fan favorite) wrestlers. Eventually Colón and González entered a feud and exchanged the title twice. González migrated to a rivalry with Pierroth, during which he defeated the Mexican luchador in hair vs. mask and loser leaves town matches. The Colón-González feud was immediately resumed and continued throughout 1999, with both once again exchanging reigns. Concurrently, Carly Colón was introduced to the public as a camera man. An angle to integrate him to the roster soon followed, with González slapping him after learning of his identity, leading to a series of confrontations.
The NWA’s presence in Japan was established in 1953, when Japanese wrestler/promoter Rikidozan founded the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance, (JWA) which quickly became the main promotion in Japan. In 1972, the JWA’s two top draws Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki left to form their own promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) respectively. As a result, the JWA soon folded. AJPW became an NWA member upon its inception in 1973 and stayed until the late 1980s. NJPW was also a member of the NWA at various points between 1975 and 1985, mainly in order to gain control of the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship. In 1992 and 1993, NJPW joined with the NWA once more to re-establish and promote the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, but left the NWA when WCW withdrew. NJPW returned to the NWA in 2004, again mainly for the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship, and it is not a connection that is strongly emphasized. Between NJPW's departure in 1993 and its return in 2004 NWA representation in Japan was scattered among a few independent promotions: the International Wrestling Association of Japan (1994–1996); the Wrestle Yume Factory (1995–1997), the Universal Fighting Arts Organization (1999–2000); and Pro Wrestling Zero-One (2001–2004). In June 2007, the Inoki Genome Federation replaced NJPW as the Japanese affiliate of the National Wrestling Alliance. In February 2008, however, New Japan returned to the NWA. At the annual meeting in 2010, New Japan did not renew its membership and left the NWA yet again. In 2011, Pro Wrestling Zero1 returned to the NWA as their Japanese territory.
Frontier Wrestling Alliance (FWA) was a professional wrestling promotion in Britain. Established in 1993 as the Fratton Wrestling Association it soon became the Frontier Wrestling Alliance six years later and until 2007 when it lost a scripted inter-promotional feud with . As a result of losing the promotion was forced to close and the company XWA was founded, largely based on the old FWA with some old staff and wrestlers as well as some championships. However, in 2009 the FWA brand was relaunched again as a separate promotion to the XWA, running for 3 more years before folding again in 2012.
The WWE Hardcore Championship was a professional wrestling championship contested for in the United States–based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promotion, formerly known as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) before May 2002. The title was only contestable in matches under hardcore regulations, and could be won only by individual wrestlers. As a professional wrestling championship, it was introduced by the WWF on its television program "Raw Is War" on November 2, 1998, in which WWF chairman Mr. McMahon awarded Mankind the title. In 2000, the WWF instated the "24/7 rule", a regulation stating that the title could be defended anywhere at any time as long as a referee was present, which led to numerous title changes in shorter time periods; the rule was discontinued in 2002. On the August 26, 2002 episode of "Raw", Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam defeated Hardcore Champion Tommy Dreamer to unify both titles; the Hardcore Championship was retired shortly thereafter. The title was reactivated on two occasions afterwards, although they are not considered official reigns by WWE according to their official title history. On the June 23, 2003 episode of "Raw", Mick Foley (who was the first champion as "Mankind") was awarded the Hardcore Championship belt by the "Raw" brand authority figure Stone Cold Steve Austin for his contributions in hardcore wrestling. Edge and Foley then introduced themselves as co-holders of the championship in 2006, due to a storyline with alumni of the hardcore wrestling-based Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion.
Following the end of the first brand extension in August 2011, both the WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In November 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Orton defeated Cena in a TLC match at the pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the unified championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship and retained the lineage of the WWE Championship; the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. Orton and subsequent champions held both championship belts until a single championship belt was given to then-champion Brock Lesnar in 2014.
Following the end of the first brand extension in 2011, both the World Heavyweight Champion and WWE Champion could appear on both "Raw" and "SmackDown". In 2013, the night after Survivor Series, then-World Heavyweight Champion John Cena made a challenge to then-WWE Champion Randy Orton to determine an undisputed WWE world champion. Randy Orton defeated John Cena in a TLC match at the pay-per-view on December 15, 2013, to unify the titles. Subsequently, the WWE Championship was renamed WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The unified championship retained the lineage of the WWE Championship, and the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. With his victory over John Cena, Randy Orton became the final World Heavyweight Champion. Like with the Undisputed Championship, the Big Gold Belt was used in tandem with the WWE Championship belt to represent the WWE World Heavyweight Championship until a single belt was presented to then champion Brock Lesnar in August 2014.
On September 18, 1956, The Fabulous Moolah became the third NWA World Women's Champion. At that time, the WWE did not exist and did not become a company until 1963 when it was established as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). Moolah, who bought the rights to the championship in the 1970s, defended the championship as the NWA World Women's Champion up until May 19, 1984; by this time, the WWWF had been renamed to World Wrestling Federation (WWF). In 1983, the WWF disaffiliated with the NWA and Moolah sold the championship's rights to the WWF in 1984, and she was recognized as the WWF Women's Champion. Instead of beginning her reign in 1984, the WWF claimed the lineage of her reign from when she first became champion in 1956. The preceding champions and the title changes between 1956 and when Moolah lost it in 1984 are not recognized by WWE (although they are recognized by the NWA). As a result, The Fabulous Moolah's first reign is considered to have lasted 28 years by the promotion.
Owing to its TV program aired on TV Asahi, NJPW is the largest professional wrestling promotion in Japan and the second largest promotion in the world. It was affiliated with the National Wrestling Alliance at various points in its history. NJPW has had agreements with various MMA and professional wrestling promotions around the world, including WWE, World Championship Wrestling, American Wrestling Association, World Class Championship Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, WAR, UWFi, Ring of Honor, Pride Fighting Championships, and Jersey All Pro Wrestling. NJPW's biggest event is the January 4 Tokyo Dome Show, held each year since 1992 and currently promoted under the Wrestle Kingdom banner.
Memphis Power Pro Wrestling (Power Pro Wrestling) was a Memphis, Tennessee based professional wrestling promotion that was founded by Randy Hales. It was affiliated with Memphis Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation. It was the first developmental territory for the World Wrestling Federation. The roster featured WWF-contracted wrestlers sent for training and experience like Kurt Angle and Matt Bloom (Tensai/Albert), and Memphis wrestling legends Bill Dundee and Jerry Lawler. It operated from April 1998 to April 2001.
In March 2001, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) purchased World Championship Wrestling. Soon after, "The Invasion" took place, in which The Alliance was ultimately dismantled. Following the Survivor Series in November 2001, the title was renamed the WWF Cruiserweight Championship, replacing the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. Following the WWF/WWE name change in 2002, the championship was subsequently referred to as the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and became exclusive to the SmackDown brand.
On September 28, 2007, the title was vacated after the final champion, Hornswoggle, was stripped of the championship by SmackDown! General manager, Vickie Guerrero. Hornswoggle had won the championship in a Cruiserweight Open at that year's The Great American Bash pay-per-view event. The last ever match contested for the title occurred on the August 31, 2007 episode of "SmackDown!", when Hornswoggle successfully defended the title against Jamie Noble.
However, both the International Wrestling Association and the National Wrestling Alliance recognized the unification match, considering Lozada the first Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion in Puerto Rico. With the absence of the stable, WWC brought Ron Killings and booked Orlando Colón to defeat him in an attempt to re-establish the performer, who had been neglected during the La Rabia angle. However, the IWA was unable to capitalize on the impact of this angle due to Mario Savoldi abandoning the company while still in possession of part of the promotion's property. This resulted in the roster splintering in two factions, with the wrestlers that sided with Savoldi leaving for a company that was supposed to debut named "International Wrestling Entertainment". The following month, Rivera and Pérez recovered control of the IWA with Ricky Vega, one of Savoldi's main supporters, eventually making a surprising return. Ray González avoided siding with either faction, instead returning to WWC under the guise of "El Cóndor". He was immediately involved in WWC's main angle, a tournament to crown a new Universal Heavyweight Champion. On August 8, 2008, the IWA responded with another parody character, Raymond Zales, which was deliberately pronounced "ray-mon-SAH-les" to mimic the phonetic pronunciation of Ray González's name ("ray-gon-SAH-les"). On August 25, 2008, Daniel "Noriega" Torres left WWC shortly after winning the tournament to crown a new Universal Heavyweight Champion. He signed with EWO and took the new belt with him, forcing WWC to revert to the previous version. Torres eventually joined the IWA, carrying the Universal Heavyweight Championship in a black bag, claiming that it was an illegitimate title due to the unification angle, choosing to pursue the IWA Undisputed Heavyweight Championship instead of defending it.
The promotion was founded by Antonio Inoki in 1972 after his departure from the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance promotion. The first NJPW event took place on March 6, 1972, in Tokyo. Inoki would serve as the president of the promotion until 1989, when he stepped down to pursue a political career as a member of the Japanese House of Councillors. The promotion was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) from 1975 to 1985 and once more from 1992 to 1993. NJPW was briefly reaffiliated with the NWA in the late 2000s to the early 2010s as well.
It was founded as Independent Wrestling League on August 13, 2010 by Martín Amaro, with Octavio Rivero as the head booker. In late 2010 Rivero was replaced by Amaro's niece, Ángeles Rubio, under whom IWL started a working agreement with Perros del Mal Producciones. Rubio would leave the promotion for personal reasons in April 2011.
He was followed as the head booker by wrestler Fantasma de la Ópera, who started a working relationship with AAA. On May 28, 2011, it was announced that Fantasma de la Ópera would be replaced by Valerie Richter. In a press conference held on June 21, 2011, Richter announced that the company would change its name to International Wrestling League.
The origins of the WWE Network can trace back to 2000 when USA Network filed the lawsuit against the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now known as the WWE) due to breach of contract which saw most of its programming moved to Viacom-owned TNN and MTV. The Delaware Chancery Court ruled in favor of the WWF in June 2000. Then CEO, Linda McMahon, revealed that WWF wanted its own cable network and testified that before WWF signed a rights deal with Viacom, the company had floated the idea of acquiring USA's Sci-Fi Channel, and reformatting it as a dedicated wrestling network. USA executives rejected the idea, and McMahon said that former USA Networks President Barry Baker encouraged her to talk to other programmers about potential deals. "I can tell you right now, Linda, you're not going to get anybody to give you a network," McMahon testified. In 2005, USA Network re-acquired the rights to all WWE programming.
The 1990 Anniversary show commemorated the 57th anniversary of the Mexican professional wrestling company "Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre" (Spanish for "Mexican Wrestling Promotion"; EMLL) holding their first show on September 22, 1933 by promoter and founder Salvador Lutteroth. EMLL was rebranded early in 1992 to become "Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre" ("World Wrestling Council"; CMLL) signal their departure from the National Wrestling Alliance. With the sales of the Jim Crockett Promotions to Ted Turner in 1988 EMLL became the oldest, still-operating wrestling promotion in the world. Over the years EMLL/CMLL has on occasion held multiple shows to celebrate their anniversary but since 1977 the company has only held one annual show, which is considered the biggest show of the year, CMLL's equivalent of WWE's WrestleMania or their Super Bowl event. CMLL has held their Anniversary show at Arena México in Mexico City, Mexico since 1956, the year the building was completed, over time Arena México earned the nickname "The Cathedral of Lucha Libre" due to it hosting most of EMLL/CMLL's major events since the building was completed. Traditionally EMLL/CMLL holds their major events on Friday Nights, replacing their regularly scheduled "Super Viernes" show.
The WWE Women's Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship in the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) promotion. The lineage of the Women's Championship dates back to September 18, 1956, when The Fabulous Moolah became the NWA World Women's Champion. The WWE did not exist at that time, and although they did not create their own women's championship until 1984 with The Fabulous Moolah as the first WWF Women's Champion, they claim 1956 for the championship's establishment and do not recognize any title changes from when Moolah became champion in 1956 until she lost it in 1984. This made the Women's Championship the oldest active professional wrestling championship in World Wrestling Entertainment history until its retirement in 2010 after unification with the WWE Divas Championship. The final champion was Layla.
The history of WWE dates back to the early 1950s when it was founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in 1952 as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). It underwent several name changes throughout the years, from World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) to World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002.
World Wrestling Professionals was formed in 1990 in the Eastern Cape City of Nelson Mandela Bay. It hosted a number of local shows all year round, and slowly grew to the No 1 Wrestling Federation in South Africa. It was formed by former professional wrestler Mark Beale, with the goal of taking South African wrestling to another level. In 2004 after years of hard work on the Road in the hope of getting the product noticed, his idea for a wrestling show was picked up by the South African Broadcaster and was given a National Contract by SABC2. The show called WWP Thunderstrike ran for a number of years on the Channel, and was eventually put on hold due to in house politics. The WWP then moved on to India to film a Weekly show on colors TV called 100% De Dana Dan, which established the WWP Brand in the Middle East. The WWP Branded Show WWP G-Force was then filmed and distributed to various networks, and has been shown all over Africa.
The WWP Launched the biggest Pro Wrestling Event on the African Continent, called the WWP Wrestling Extravaganza "WRESTLEMONSTER", which became a instant hit in South Africa, and has drawn in excess of 18000 spectators to the event. It continues to grow and in 2019 WRESTLEMONSTER 5 will be held