Welcome in. We are so glad you are here with
us today. Absolutely. Because today we have a
custom tailored deep dive designed entirely around
the stack of sources you provided. And it's a
great stack. It really is. We are looking at
a fascinating biographical entry on a figure
who operates largely behind the curtain of professional
wrestling. We are talking about Hector Melendez.
Right. Who you probably know better by his stage
name Moody Jack Melendez or simply just Moody.
Just Moody. Exactly. And the mission for our
deep dive today is to explore exactly how a bilingual
kid from Ponce, Puerto Rico, managed to navigate
the chaotic, hyperdramatic and constantly shifting
business of international professional wrestling.
Which is an incredibly difficult business to
navigate. It is. And to see how he navigated
all that to become an absolute creative powerhouse.
I mean, it is a wild ride. It really is an incredible
trajectory. And to fully appreciate this journey,
you know, we really have to look. past the ring,
when you think about professional wrestling,
the immediate focus is naturally on the talent.
The larger than life characters, the in -ring
psychology, the promos. The stuff on camera.
Exactly. But the real architects of the industry,
the people who actually build the entire emotional
and logistical framework that you are watching.
are the sportscasters, the bookers, and the television
producers. They construct the weekly television
narrative that makes the big pay -per -view payoffs
actually matter to you. And what's fascinating
here is that Melendez's career is a masterclass
in wearing all of those hats simultaneously.
Oh, yeah. We are talking about a guy moving fluidly
from play -by -play announcer to lead video editor
to head booker. And not just across competing
promotions, but across entirely different countries
and distinct wrestling cultures. Okay, let's
unpack this. Because his story does not start
in a production track. No. Or at a commentary
desk. It starts exactly where you would expect
with pure, unadulterated fandom in the territories.
But as we are going to see, this journey is filled
with intense corporate rivalries, real world
tragedies, and the very fine art of learning
how to leverage your skills so you don't become
a yes man in a famously cutthroat industry. Which
is a crucial skill. Definitely. So let's take
you back to Melendez's childhood. Picture those
early Saturday mornings. He is a young kid. And
his mother is taking him to the World Wrestling
Council or WWC shows every single Saturday in
Puerto Rico. Well, every Saturday. Every Saturday.
And he is absolutely hooked. She becomes completely
invested in the local capital sports promotions
product. But then a very real, very dark disruption
completely shatters his connection to the local
scene. It is a profound pivot point for him.
Looking at the timeline of his fandom, this intense
dedication to the local product came to a sudden
halt. Right. And this was because. of the infamous
alleged killing of Bruiser Brody by Jose Huertes
Gonzalez at a local event. Yeah. When you look
at the psychological impact of a moment like
that on a fan, it is staggering. It completely
shatters the barrier between the locker room
and the audience. Because the real world crashes
in. Exactly. And for a young Melendez, the local
territory suddenly felt painted. It was entirely
alienated. You can completely understand why
he pulled away from it. But the interesting thing
is. he didn't stop watching wrestling wow he
just fundamentally shifted his viewing habits
he turned his attention almost exclusively to
the programming of the major mainland promotions
in the united states so the wwf and wcw which
becomes so important later right exactly because
he wasn't just seeking distance from the local
tragedy he was honestly he was inadvertently
studying high -level television production yes
he was watching polished mainland broadcasts
he was absorbing the sophisticated editing the
multi -camera setups, the tightly timed commercial
formats. He kept one eye on the local capital
programming, but his brain was absorbing the
mainland production style. Precisely. That immersion
in mainland television production planted the
seeds for his future skill set. But that deep,
visceral spark for local wrestling didn't return
until an entirely new entity arrived on the island,
the IWAs. Exactly. The debut of the International
Wrestling Association, or the IWA. The arrival
of the IWA represented a clean slate in Puerto
Rico. A fresh start. It was a fresh product,
a completely new booking philosophy, and it finally
reignited his local passion without that heavy...
Real world baggage of the past. And this is exactly
where the transition from fan to professional
actually happens. At the time, Melendez was just
working a regular job for a magazine publisher
in Puerto Rico's metropolitan area. But that
renewed spark from the IWA pushed him to pursue
a position with them. He got his foot in the
door, stepped out of the audience and crossed
the barrier to the backstage. And he clearly
had a vision. He clearly impressed the right
people because by 2004, he leaves Puerto Rico
entirely to enter the major leagues. He packs
up and moves to Nashville, Tennessee to join
total nonstop action wrestling TNA. Which at
that time was a massive jump. TNA was actively
establishing itself as the primary alternative
in the American wrestling landscape. Thanks to
connections with wrestling veterans Dutch Mantle
and Jeff Jarrett, Melendez wasn't just brought
in to call us matches. He was hired as a sportscaster,
a video editor, and a producer. I have to pause
there because doing just one of those jobs for
a national television broadcast is exhausting.
Oh, absolutely. How does one guy even manage
that workload? What does that actually look like
day to day? Well, it is... A grueling, nonstop
workflow. As a video editor and producer, you
are spending your days in a dark editing bay.
You're cutting together the high energy promotional
packages, timing out the dramatic beats of a
storyline and making sure the final video perfectly
sells the upcoming match. Right. Then you step
out of the editing bay, you put on a headset,
walk out to the arena. And as a sportscaster,
you have to dynamically call the live action
of the very storylines you just spent 12 hours
editing. That is insane. The synergy is incredible
because he knew the storylines inside and out.
Yeah. But the burnout rate for that kind of multitasking
is astronomically high. Yeah. He was a one man
production army. Yeah, he did. Right. yawning,
and practically trying to set the stage on fire
while you're trying to deliver your lines. That's
a great way to put it. Melendez felt Conan openly
disrespected the position and actively prevented
him from doing a good job on the broadcast. If
we connect this to the bigger picture, we see
a fascinating phenomenon that happens constantly
in professional wrestling. What's that? The off
-screen dynamics. The real life backstage frustrations
and personal heat have a way of bleeding directly
into the onscreen creative direction. They absolutely
do. Because right in the middle of this alleged
desk friction, by December 2005, Conan forms
a brand new onscreen stable. The Latin American
Exchange or LAX. OK. And the core narrative of
this faction, their specific onscreen mission
statement for the audience, was that Latinos
were actively being discriminated against by
TNA management. Right. And we should note that
was the faction's storyline claim to generate
heat with the crowd. It was part of the show.
Exactly. But here's where it gets really interesting.
Moody Jack Melendez, despite the real life frustration
with Cone at the desk, becomes deeply integrated
into this massive onscreen act. He does. LAX.
LAX gets their own specialized entrance and Moody
becomes the official booming Spanish voice making
their introductions and the storyline escalates
dramatically. That really ramps up. By mid -2006,
LAX sets up a physical border zone around the
Spanish commentary table. The story was that
they would decimate any wrestler who dared to
cross that line. So Melendez was no longer just
calling the action. He was woven into the physical
environment of the show. And it peaks at the
TNA Victory Road event in 2006, where Moody actually
starts physically interfering in matches. He
is actively helping LAX defeat their opponents.
It is brilliant television production. Isn't
it? You take a sportscaster, someone the audience
naturally views as an objective. third -party
observer, and you weaponize him as an active
participant in a rebellious faction. It subverts
expectations beautifully. It really does. But
behind the scenes, the reality of the grueling
business side was catching up to him. In October
2006, Melendez abruptly quits TNA. He just walks
away. And when you look at his reasons, it comes
down to basic math. Yeah. He felt that the pay
raise TNA offered him was laughably insufficient
to make up for all those increased duties. I
mean, he is announcing, managing, taking physical
bumps, editing, and producing. Giving five jobs.
Exactly. And the compensation simply did not
reflect the value he was bringing to the television
product. There was also a rumored fallout with
Jeff Jarrett, one of the guys who initially brought
him in. Right. But there was another prominent
rumor floating around the dirt sheets. The rumor
was that Melendez secretly wanted the pencil.
He wanted more creative control and had supposedly
already accepted a position as the head booker
back home for the IWA before he even quit TNA.
And his Direct response to that rumor is one
of the most revealing moments of his entire career.
Yes, it is a real power statement. Regarding
the rumor that he already had the IWA job in
his back pocket, Melendez explicitly stated that
accepting the position was, and I quote, a fact
after the matter just because I wasn't a yes
man, end quote. That is a remarkable quote to
unpack. And it offers a universal career lesson,
regardless of your industry. It is about fundamentally
knowing your own leverage. When you are performing
three or four distinct jobs, when your on -screen
and off -screen duties increase significantly
and your check does not reflect that reality,
you are the mark. The danger of doing all that
extra work just for the exposure or out of loyalty
is that it sets a permanent precedent for how
management will treat you. Melendez recognized
that. He definitely did. And it takes immense
courage. to refuse to be a yes man in a tight
-knit, highly political industry like professional
wrestling. Getting a reputation is difficult,
can get you permanently blacklisted. But he had
the leverage because his talent as a producer
and booker was undeniable. And we see that immediately
in the next phase of his career. Yes, we do.
He returns to Puerto Rico and takes the job full
-time as the head booker for the IWA alongside
Luke Williams. But his timeline gets incredibly
bouncy here. Very bouncy. Just a few months later,
on January 18, 2007, he makes a brief return
to TNA television on Impact. He is back as an
announcer and the manager of LAX, interfering
in matches again. Right. But this second stint
does not last long at all. He takes a complete
break from wrestling for about four months, and
then he makes a shocking jump. A massive jump.
He accepts a position with the IWA's fierce rival,
the World Wrestling Council, the WWC. He begins
working as their head booker, head of TV, and
commentator. Wait, I have to stop you there.
Okay. In a business built on extreme backstage
politics and loyalty, doesn't jumping directly
to your fierce local rival completely burn your
bridges? How does he survive that politically?
He survives it through absolute indispensability.
Okay. In a territory system or a localized market
like Puerto Rico, promotions will swallow their
pride and ignore perceived disloyalty. If you
were the only person who could deliver a rating.
Wow. So he was that essential. Exactly. When
you break down what it means to be the head booker,
the head of TV, and the commentator simultaneously,
you realize he is carrying the entire company
on his back. Right. As head booker, you are staring
at a blank booking sheet mapping out a 52 -week
emotional arc for 40 different egos in the locker
room. As head of TV, you are sitting in the gorilla
position. timing the commercial breaks to the
second and screaming at the camera operators
to catch the right angles. And then, as commentator,
you have to go out there and use your voice to
sell the very narrative you just wrote and directed.
It's unbelievable. To be able to do all three
flawlessly means you hold all the leverage. You
can bounce between rivals because they literally
cannot produce their weekly television show without
you. And his reputation as a one -man production
powerhouse wasn't limited to Puerto Rico or the
States. Since way back in 2004, the late Antonio
Peña, the president of the massive Mexican promotion
AAA, had been calling Melendez. Right, for years.
Peña had a massive vision to completely revolutionize
the television presentation of Mexican wrestling,
and he genuinely believed Melendez was the specific
guy who could translate American TV pacing into
Lucha Libre. He offered him a job to book right
alongside him. Which is an incredible vote of
confidence. AAA is an absolute titan of the industry.
But Melendez had politely declined the offer
for years. However, timing is everything. After
dealing with the exhausting, multi -hat pressure
cooker of the WWC, Melendez felt it was finally
time to shift gears. He takes the leap. He quits
WWC, does another incredibly brief run with the
IWA, takes three months off to breathe, and then
finally accepts Antonio Pena's offer. Right.
He moves to Mexico. And surprise, surprise, he
puts on a dozen different hats. For AAA, he works
as a creative consultant to the Pena family,
an agent, a TV producer, and a video editor.
Just doing everything. Everything. He stays in
Mexico doing this exhaustive foundational work
until 2011. when he eventually returns to Puerto
Rico with his role at AAA being taken over by
Miguel G. Fonseca. But even back in Puerto Rico,
his ability to navigate complex political waters
keeps him right at the center of the industry.
He gets heavily involved with the World Wrestling
League, the WWL. Right. And his connections from
his past continue to pay off. Remember Conan?
From TNA. Exactly. Despite their massive backstage
friction at the TNA desk years prior, they were
able to put business first. Melendez mediated
a major talent exchange between... the WWL in
Puerto Rico, and a Mexican promotion called The
Crash, where Conan was working. Right. They set
up this cross -promotional event called Golpe
de Estado in 2017. But what actually goes into
a talent exchange behind the scenes? That's so
complicated. Because fans just see cool dream
matches, but it has to be a logistical nightmare,
right? It is high -stakes corporate diplomacy.
A talent exchange isn't just a handshake. It
involves incredibly complex logistics. You are
securing international working visas, negotiating
who pays for the flights and the hotels, and
most importantly, the booking protection. The
politics of the match itself. Precisely. If you
send your top star to another promotion, you're
trusting their booker not to make your star look
weak. Who agrees to take the pin? How do you
ensure your local talent gets the rub, the elevated
status from working with the visiting international
star? Melendez had to mediate all of those massive
egos and corporate interests. And the backstage
drama at WWL never really stopped. Following
the summer season, Melendez actually left the
WWL. He did. He had an offer on the table to
book for the crash in Mexico, and he walked out
amidst intense internal differences with the
owner of the wrestling ring and his own tag team
partner. It was a messy political exit. Yeah.
But true to form, it was a short -lived one.
He returned to the WWL shortly afterwards when
that same tag team partner left to go work for
the rival WWC. But then the script gets flipped
entirely. Yes. This is where the story shifts
from the manufactured drama of wrestling politics
to the devastating reality of the physical world.
Because sometimes real world events are so catastrophic
that they completely decimate the infrastructure
of the industry. During the 2017 Atlantic hurricane
season, Puerto Rico took direct hits from Hurricanes
Irma and Maria. Absolute, complete devastation
for the island. The infrastructure was wiped
out. Melendez lost power for several months,
and under those conditions, running an independent
professional wrestling promotion is physically
impossible. You just can't do it. You can't broadcast
television. You can't cool an arena. You can't
fly in talent. The WWL was forced into an indefinite
hiatus. The carefully constructed storylines,
the meticulous booking sheets, the international
talent exchanges, all of it evaporated in the
face of basic survival. Yeah. And during this
dark period, The business landscape shifted again.
Conan left the crash to join Arulucha, which
formally ended the talent exchange agreement
they had worked so hard to build. You can't control
the weather, and you can't stop the industry
from moving forward while your island is without
power. But you have to admire Melendez's resilience.
The rebuild eventually starts. It always does
with them. By early 2018, the WWL was finally
gearing up to return to action. And Melendez
was right back at the helm as the Booker. He
wasn't just hiding in the production truck either.
No. He was actively appearing in several promotional
videos, physically approaching figures like Mr.
Big Miguel Maldonado and Dennis Rivera. His goal
was to construct a powerful new on -screen faction
that would oppose the dominant heel group led
by Manny Furno. He was back to doing exactly
what he does best, engineering the narrative.
And all of these disparate experiences, the childhood
trauma that pushed him to study mainland TV,
the exhausting multitasking in TNA, the ruthless
bouncing between rival Puerto Rican territories,
the expansion into AAA in Mexico, and surviving
the total infrastructural collapse of the hurricanes,
all of it forged a skill set that leads directly
to an ultimate... historic culmination. Yes,
this brings our timeline up to an absolutely
massive milestone. We are talking about the upcoming
event scheduled for June 7, 2025. It is the ultimate
industry crossover, WWE x AAA Worlds Collide.
This is an unprecedented collaboration between
World Wrestling Entertainment, the undisputed
corporate juggernaut of American sports entertainment,
and AAA, the titan of Mexican lucha libre. It's
massive. And for this historic high wire event,
Moody Jack Melendez was hired. This marks a the
second major return to AAA, but much more significantly,
it marks his very first creative job for WWE.
The magnitude of this cannot be overstated. You
are dealing with a massive clash of corporate
cultures here. Right. WWE operates in an incredibly
insulated, highly sanitized, and strictly formatted
television environment. AAA, by contrast, embraces
the chaotic, high -flying, vastly different psychology
of traditional lucha libre. Historically, these
two styles do not. mash easily so what does this
all mean why was moody jack the exact right guy
for this incredibly delicate crossover because
he is essentially the industry's rosetta stone
Melendez's unique bilingual capabilities obviously
allow him to communicate across borders. But
far more importantly, he possesses a deep, nuanced
understanding of the distinct creative psychologies
of American, Mexican, and Puerto Rican wrestling.
He's lived all of them. Exactly. He understands
the meticulous, rigid TV pacing that WWE demands
because he studied it and executed it in TNA.
He understands the Lucha Libre psychology because
he lived it working for the Pena family in AAA.
Right. He is arguably the only creative producer
who can translate not just the literal language,
but the creative intent between WWE's regime
and AAA's management, ensuring neither side looks
weak and the broadcast is flawless. That makes
perfect sense. Furthermore, his career -long
willingness to walk away from bad deals, demand
proper compensation, and refuse to be a yes -man
ultimately protected his professional value.
it elevated him to this historic stage. It really
is a phenomenal arc. We started with a young
fan sitting in the stands in Ponce, Puerto Rico,
completely alienated by a real world tragedy
that pushed him to study the mechanics of mainland
television. And we end with the lead architect
operating behind the curtain of historic WWE
and AAA collaboration. It is a powerful reminder
of the value of being endlessly adaptable. It
highlights the strategic importance of knowing
the intricate mechanics of your industry better
than anyone else in the room. And above all,
it proves the long -term payoff of standing your
ground, leveraging your indispensable skills,
and knowing exactly what your time is worth.
Absolutely. And as we wrap up, this raises an
important question for you to mull over. When
you look closely at Melendez's actual life, navigating
intense corporate fallouts, mediating high -stakes
international talent exchanges, demanding proper
pay under extreme pressure, and literally surviving
natural disasters that shut down entire economies,
His real life is arguably vastly more dramatic
and complex than any fictional storyline he ever
wrote for a wrestling ring. That is so true.
It leaves you wondering. Yeah. In entertainment
industries that are built entirely on manufacturing
drama and controlling the narrative for the audience,
how often are the most brilliant, highest stakes
games being played entirely off camera by the
very people holding the pen? That is a fascinating
thought to leave on. Thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive. We hope you enjoyed exploring
the mechanics of this industry through these
sources as much as we did, and we warmly invite
you back for our next exploration. Until then,
take care.