WIN was a Baja-area fed with a combination of big names (the Guerreros seem especially prominent) and local guys. They seem to have run exclusively short, one-fall matches, and as a result, there is nothing here to really recommend for this project. On top of that, I don't even know who a lot of the local guys are, so doing a proper write-up is a bit difficult, and feels kinda pointless for something that isn't going to yield any keepers. All the same, it wouldn't be right to just ignore it, so here are some notes of interest from the discs I've watched.

 

WIN 10/29-11/5/89

 

-I kinda dig Ari Romero's gimmick here. He looks like the Mexican bastard child of Superstar Graham and Buzz Sawyer. It is super-sleazy and fantastic.

 

-Our first Guerrero spotted is Hector...who is working as Lazertron? What? I seriously did not know he used that gimmick outside WCW, certainly not in a place where the name "Guerrero" would probably mean something to somebody. Is there lucha Gobbledeygooker out there? He's teaming with "The Cat" Bob Bradley, AKA the guy I called "the least convincing street tough ever" in '87 World Class. Their opponents are the awesomely-named Super Pinocchio ripoff Nino Assesino, and Oriental, a tubby guy in a yellow mask with a headband and Fu Manchu mustache on it.

 

-The presence of actual name guys in this fed leads to a lot of frustration when dealing with locals with masks and gear obviously ripped off from bigger stars. Really excited to see guys like Lizmark, Angel Azteca, the Villanos, etc, and then it dawns on me that it's not really them. Bummer.

 

-Mr. Pepto has one of the dopier-looking masks I've ever seen-a sparkly pink with really tall, clown-like eye designs, but in black for some reason. I'm not quite sure what he's trying to get at with that, but he looks like a gay Juggalo.

 

-Captain Oro vs. Ari Romero is the first match here that really gets any time. Romero has fun heel shtick and is a solid brawler, but his selling felt a little too over-the-top comical to me, especially given how mediocre Oro's offense was. Oro wasn't awful, but he really brought nothing to this.

 

-Principe India vs. Ultraman II is given a little time as well. I'm not sure why. These guys seem like they have things they can do, but not enough to fill even an average-length singles bout. Seem like guys who are better off hidden in tags or trios or in matches against better opponents. Not sure why this needed to be a showcase match when they have so little to showcase.

 

-A Super Muneco match? They could hire the actual Super Muneco, but needed a fake Super Pinocchio?

This looks like some kinda fun stuff, going by your descriptions.

To be clear, the stuff on these shows wasn't bad, necessarily, just not anything that's ever going to make an 80's Set. If you've got an hour or two to kill, you could do a lot worse than watching some WIN. There was also an appearance from a young Eddy Guerrero, and this match, which I reviewed for the Pirata Morgan Complete & Accurate:

 

Pirata Morgan & Ari Romero vs. El Jalisco & Super Star WIN 12/24/1989 - FUN

 

I had set my expectations unreasonably high for this one. This was my first time seeing El Jalisco, and for those who don't know, he was the other guy in the match where Pirata lost his eye. Pirata - then simply Ramon Morgan - was working a match against Jalisco in 1981. He went for a tope con hilo, Jalisco was out of position, and Morgan somehow managed to land eyeball-first on the concrete, exploding it on impact. And you would think an incident like that would make every subsequent match between the two an automatic grudge match. Hell, that's how it worked for Iceman King Parsons and Buddy Roberts, and Buddy's hair grew back. So I had certain expectations of bloodletting that this match really didn't live up to. Furthermore, WIN seems to have been a promotion that ran mostly short, one-fall matches, so there's not much time to get anything done, anyway. That said, judging the match on it's own merits, it is pretty good while it lasts. Pirata's exchanges with Jalisco aren't what you would want them to be given their history, but they do both lay into each other well enough, and I really liked Jalisco's take on the tope en reversa. That's usually a very graceful move, but he just spins around and launches the back of his head into your face. These two probably did have an EPIC revancha match at some point, but this wasn't it.

WIN 11/12-11/19/89

 

-This week on Moderately Interesting Gimmick Theater, he have Zara, a white luchadora in one of Miss Elizabeth's dresses and a sparkly silver Batwoman mask (as in "Wild World of...."). According to the announcer, the ladies at home want to hear her beefy male valet speak, but he refuses to do so unless instructed to by Zara.

 

-Bobby Bradley & Ultraman II vs. El Chicano & El Salvaje gets a little time. It's perfectly solid wrestling. Made sense as a showcase bout.

 

-Mando Guerrero vs. Ari Romero was about 90% shtick. The shtick was OK. Not out of this world or anything, but OK. The remaining 10% of brawling was awesome, though. In another promotion, where six minutes wasn't considered "going long" and matches were allowed to follow a basic three act structure, this might've ruled. As is, it was a fun diversion. Finish was simultaneously dopey and amusing. Dopey in that they did the Kurt Angle "heel accidentally hits the top rope with a chairshot and it bounces back at him" spot leading to a DQ, amusing in that it actually bounced over Romero and hit the ref behind him, then it jumped out of his hands and fell on his head, then when Romero realized the ref was about to call for a DQ, quickly grabbed the ref's hand and made him raise his in order to get him declared the winner somehow. It didn't work, and I'm not sure why he thought it would, but it was funny regardless (because?) of it.

 

-Hey, we get Super Muneco vs. Nino Assesino this time! It's part of a trios match with Muneco, Blue Demon Jr., and Falcon de Oro vs. Assesino, Crazy 33, and Something Rivera. It's not that good, unfortunately, but Muneco and Assesino make up for it a bit with a decent post-match brawl. Muneco challenges Assesino to a mask vs. mask match, which seems like it could have worked on paper.

 

-According to the end credits, these shows were Executive Produced by Red Bastien. I'm guessing that has little to no bearing on his HOF candidacy or anything. Just throwing it out there.

WIN was Red Bastien run lucha fed, where he famously would cut the checks to guys gimmicked names.

Ari Romero was Crazy Sheik or Gran Sheik in MPro and Big Japan, mediocre lucha heavyweight.

Mr. Pepto is actually working a spectacular Pepto Bismol gimmick, I'm not sure how you missed that. He's a giant bottle of Pepto.

I think Principe India is probably Superboy's brother Principe Hindu.

My memory is that there is a good match with some kid in a wolverine costume, and something entertaining with either Villano I or II I want to say opposite Rudy Boy Gonzalez.

Mr. Pepto is actually working a spectacular Pepto Bismol gimmick, I'm not sure how you missed that. He's a giant bottle of Pepto.

I think the eyes threw me. It's really obvious once you point it out. Still looks like a gay Juggalo.

 

I think Principe India is probably Superboy's brother Principe Hindu.

He was actually referred to as "Principe Hindu" on commentary for most of the match, so yeah, probably the same guy.

Hector was also Lazertron for a while in EMLL.

 

I heard that Dan Farren found a few hours of "unseen" (non Lynch or Fredo) WIN that he was going to convert. Bix maybe you can get your hands on that. He may have mentioned it on some podcast. There's a match (only one ever?) with the four Guerrero brothers on youtube but unless I'm forgetting something never seen it on tape.

This was interesting to say the least. Fun stuff but nothing really special.