Eddie Einhorn
Eddie Einhorn, the promoter creator of the IWA, the company where Mil Máscaras won his age-old championship, died last February 24th due to complications from a stroke. Einhorn started selling hot dogs at the games of the Chicago White Sox, the team he would co-own from 1981 onwards.
The information comes through the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer newsletter:
"Einhorn is credited with putting college basketball on the map as a sport with national television coverage, and he was a shareholder and president of the Chicago White Sox.
“Einhorn could be the first owner of a sports franchise to be a regular reader of the Wrestling Observer, since its early days. A fan of almost all sports, including wrestling, Eihorn teamed up with Pedro Martinez in 1975 to found a national promotion, the International Wrestling Association (IWA) which tried to oppose the NWA and WWWF by offering guaranteed money contracts - something that the established companies did not do - as well as paid hotel and transportation."
“They built the IWA around Mil Máscaras as their world champion, but they had trouble renting big arenas, because the established promotions, which regularly held events in those arenas, had exclusivity agreements.”
“That was also one of the last examples of promoter unity, who teamed up to face the IWA by sending their top stars to hold big events that competed with the IWA when it invaded a territory.”
“The group was known for holding three outdoor shows that summer at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, getting more than 14 thousand fans for Mil Máscaras vs. Ivan Koloff, and then 8,000 and 9,000 for Máscaras vs. Ernie Ladd. But they couldn't get dates at Madison Square Garden or Nassau Coliseum."
On July 26, 1975, Francisco Flores and his company Promociones Mora held a function at the Plaza México in the capital of the country. In the super main event, the match for the IWA International Heavyweight Championship between Mil Máscaras and Lou Thesz was programmed. Einhorn was present that day at the event, as we have already reported before on SUPER LUCHAS.
Eddie Einhorn, smiling in the front row despite the rain. The IWA was the first company to try to establish itself nationwide in the USA a decade before the WWF did (July 26, 1975).
Eddie Einhorn, Mil Máscaras, and Robert Hatch, president of the IWA (July 26, 1975).
Einhorn left the IWA, which continued for a while, with Martínez and Johnny Powers at the helm, in the Carolinas area. Einhorn would return to wrestling in 1984:
"He tried to work with other promoters to unite against Vince McMahon. Meetings were held in Chicago with the main promoters of the era, and Einhorn helped them have television in the Northeast as Pro Wrestling USA. The joke is that those promoters were so used to making their own decisions that they couldn't agree on anything, not even what time to have lunch. Jerry Jarrett and Bill Watts soon left; Fritz Von Erich never joined; and the united front consisted of Verne Gagne and Jim Crockett Promotions, who worked together for a brief period of time, initially succeeding, but then ticket sales dwindled. Crockett - who had more money than Gagne - and his booker Dusty Rhodes talked to Gagne's key talent, especially their biggest draws, the Road Warriors, and offered them more money to go with them. Einhorn stepped away from the business after that, but remained a fan throughout the nineties."
Rest in peace Eddie Einhorn.