International Wrestling Association

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For the Japanese promotion which was an offshoot originally co-founded by Victor Quiñones, see International Wrestling Association of Japan.

International Wrestling Association's logo

The International Wrestling Association (IWA) is a wrestling promotion in Puerto Rico. Started in 1994 by promoter Victor Quiñones. The company was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance until 2001. IWA was also a WWE Developmental territory from 1999-2001. Quiñones was found dead on the morning of April 2, 2006. Early reports are that he died in his sleep of natural causes. [1]

The IWA is probably the fastest growing promotion in Puerto Rico of the past few years. In recent years, it has given the island's long-standing promotion, World Wrestling Council a tough competition, featuring younger local and international stars.

This promotion should not be confused with another IWA, which was started up by Eddie Einhorn and operated in the mid 1970s. Einhorn's IWA was arguably the first concentrated effort to create a single, nationally-touring wrestling promotion, competing directly against the members of the National Wrestling Alliance.

IWA started to replace the WWC as the #1 wrestling company in Puerto Rico in 2002 when they got "Mr. Raytings" Ray Gonzalez from that company and due to a legal problem with the WWC Gonzalez had to work under a mask as "Rey Fenix" for 7-8 months. 2003 also saw some more WWC stars like Invader #1, El Profe, Thunder & Lightning all enter the company. 2005 and early 2006 saw IWA losing some if its top stars like Apolo, Ricky Banderas, Glamour Boy Shane (Sewell returned a year later) and the death of founder & promoter Victor Quinones hit the company hard. Now IWA of today is Led by Ray Gonzalez, Glamour Boy Shane, Zona Illegal, Mikel Judas, Lightning and a great supporting cast.