UWA World Welterweight Tournament, 1976
The creation of the UWA World Welterweight Championship stems out of the NWA World Welterweight Championship. Mano Negra jumped from EMLL to Promociones Mora while still champion. The rival promotion and it's new luchador attempted to keep and defend the title, the same as had been done with national championships. The NWA protested, and eventually the belt was relinquished. Promociones Mora decided to instead create their own welterweight championship, as part of creating the concept of UWA championship.
Mano Negra and his father El Rebelde were scheduled to be involved in the championship tournament and Mano Negra would've been a favorite to win. Both men were listed as participating in the tournamen, but, by the time the tournament was to take place, both men had agreed to return to EMLL. The tournament was shuffled without them.
The eight man tournament followed normal single elimination tournament rules, but the two halves were split among two different arenas. The upper half, which included Zeus, Tawa Vera, Villano III and Hashi Masataka, all took place on December 9, 1975 in Auditorio Benito Juarez, Cuautitlan, Estado de Mexico.
The bottom half of the bracket took place in Arena Veracruz, over a series of days. The first round match between Huracan Ramirez & Leon Negro took place on December 5, 1975. The Atila versus Johnny Lezanco was held on December 8. The block final took place on December 12.
The tournament final was scheduled to take place on December 17 in Mexico City's Palacio de los Deportes. However, the card was built around the debut of Mil Mascaras, the promotion and Mil could not come to terms on agreement in time, and the final was postponed. It finally took place on December 28, in Monterrey. There, Villano III defeated Huracan Ramirez to win the new championship.
Bracket
Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | |||||||||||
Zeus | W | ||||||||||||
Hashi Masataka | |||||||||||||
Zeus | |||||||||||||
Villano III | W | ||||||||||||
Villano III | W | ||||||||||||
Tawa Vera | |||||||||||||
Villano III | W | ||||||||||||
Huracan Ramirez | |||||||||||||
Huracan Ramirez | W | ||||||||||||
Leon Negro | |||||||||||||
Huracan Ramirez | W | ||||||||||||
Atila | |||||||||||||
Atila | W | ||||||||||||
Johnny Lezcano | |||||||||||||