the championship on March 23, 1996. This led to a feud with Colón, who defeated Bronco in a retirement vs. deportation match. After this Colón retained the championship, with it being held up once during this period. On June 25, 1996, Jesús Castillo, Jr. won the title while working a tour in Puerto Rico. Castillo dropped the title to Colón on the last date of this tour. Colón was then involved in angles with El Nene and Jim Steele with both of them winning the title once before dropping it back. Following this Colón announced a semi-retirement and vacated the championship. A tournament was held with González winning it again. During this run Ray was pushed and his adversaries tried to put him over. This was followed by an angle where González and Colón would experience trouble and after González lost and regained the title against El Nene, both had a feud where Colón won the championship for a twenty-third time, but ended up losing it back to Ray the following day. González defended the title until November 26, 1998, when Glamour Boy Shane won it, losing it to González two days after. Over the course of three months Ray lost and regained the title against Colón again. This year the World Wrestling Council ran an invasion angle where personnel from Lucha Libre AAA World Wide (AAA) wrestled in the company; this led to a feud between Pierroth, Jr. and González. Both of them faced each other in a hair vs. mask match for the championship, where González won and Pierroth was forced to remove his mask. The following day Pierroth won the championship; this feud ended in a "loser leaves WWC" match that González won and thus became champion for a ninth time. Soon after this González was involved in an angle where Carly Colón made his debut in wrestling, eventually helping Colón win the championship for the last occasion in his career. González would win the championship back on January 6, 2000. This was followed by an angle that saw Carly win the title. The feud continued with González bringing foreign wrestlers to challenge him for the title, among whom were Curt Hennig and Jerry Flynn, who won the title eventually losing it to Bronco, who lost to Ray shortly after. González was then involved in a feud where he retained against El Super Gladiador, during which the