International World Class Championship Wrestling

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International World Class Championship Wrestling (IWCCW) was an independent professional wrestling promotion based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was promoted by former three-time NWA World Jr. Heavyweight Champion Angelo Savoldi and his three sons Mario, Tom, and Joe.

1 History
2 Notable Wrestlers
3 Championships
4 External links

[edit] History

The promotion started in 1984/85 as International Championship Wrestling (not to be confused with the similarly-named promotion run by Angelo Poffo). The promotion enjoyed limited success since it was not affiliated with a national American promotion such as the World Wrestling Federation.

It was affiliated with the Puerto Rico-based World Wrestling Council throughout its existence, as the WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship and the WWC Tag Team Championship were seen as the top championships in the promotion. On February 27, 1985, Dory Funk, Jr. defeated Carlos Colón for the WWC Universal Heavyweight Title in Bangor, Maine. It marked the first time that the WWC Universal Title changed hands outside of Puerto Rico. The affiliation with the WWC allowed WWC wrestlers to compete on ICW/IWCCW shows and vice versa.

In 1991, the promotion entered into a working agreement with World Class Championship Wrestling. This working agreement allowed WCCW wrestlers to appear on ICW shows, and vice versa. Due to this working agreement, ICW changed the name of the promotion to International World Class Championship Wrestling (IWCCW), using the same opening sequence as WCCW did in the 1980s, with Earth from the Apollo 16 mission in the background.

The promotion became infamous for a wrestler named Curly Moe, who was based on Curly from The Three Stooges. Although he was huge at over 6'4 and weighing well over 450 pounds, he had a rather limited wrestling repetoire and was seen as a failure.

Kevin Von Erich, who competed very little in IWCCW, was the federation's World Class heavyweight champion. He participated in a memorable interview with wrestler Tony Rumble, aka The Boston Bad Boy. During that interview, Rumble berated the Von Erichs, and Kevin in return ran Rumble out of the studio when he signaled for the iron claw. Another World Class mainstay, Chris Adams, was to have been a part of IWCCW, but was not able to join the federation due to his legal troubles. Adams did compete on several cards in the northeast after World Class ceased operations.

The federation also aired earlier matches from World Class during that time.

The promotion eventually folded in the mid-1990s, as Kevin returned to Texas and eventually retired from the sport altogether.

IWCCW's weekly TV show was hosted by Les Thatcher and Lou Thesz.