Date September 18, 2009 Venue Arena Mexico CMLL 76th Anniversary Show Gran Alternativa 2009 | Attendance 18,000 City Mexico City, Mexico | |
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Promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) | ||
The CMLL 76th Anniversary Show was a professional wrestling major show event produced by Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) that took place on September 18, 2009 in Arena Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. The show featured six matches, with the main event being a Lucha de Apuestas, mask vs. hair match between Místico and Negro Casas. The second featured event is an eight-man, or Atómicos match featuring a team of Mexicans facing a team of Japanese wrestlers. Team Mexico consists of Último Guerrero, Atlantis, Black Warrior and Héctor Garza. Shocker was originally scheduled to be part of the team but in the days leading up to the event he was quietly replaced with Atlantis without announcing why. Team Japan consisted of Jushin Thunder Liger, who had travelled to Mexico for the match, No Limit (Yujiro and Naito), who had been in Mexico for several months to gain experience and finally CMLL regular Okumura. The event also featured three regular Six-man tag team matches, a six-man Mini-Estrella match and a women's tag team match. The show celebrates the anniversary of the founding of CMLL, originally known as Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre. This year is the 76th anniversary of CMLL, the oldest professional wrestling promotion. in the world. The anniversary show is CMLL's biggest show of the year, their Super Bowl event.
Contents
Background
The 2009 CMLL Anniversary Shows commemorated the 76th anniversary of the Mexican professional wrestling company Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (Spanish for "World Wrestling Council"; CMLL) holding their first show on September 22, 1933 by promoter and founder Salvador Lutteroth. CMLL, originally known as Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre ("Mexican Wrestling Company"; EMLL) it would change its name to Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre in 1992 to signal their departure from the National Wrestling Alliance. With the sales of the Jim Crockett Promotions to Ted Turner in 1988 CMLL became the oldest, still-operating wrestling promotion in the world. Over the years CMLL has on occasion held multiple shows to celebrate their anniversary but since 1977 the company has only held one annual show, which is considered the biggest show of the year, CMLL's equivalent of WWE's WrestleMania or their Super Bowl event. CMLL has held their Anniversary show at Arena México in Mexico City, Mexico since 1956, the year the building was completed, over time Arena México earned the nickname "The Cathedral of Lucha Libre" due to it hosting most of CMLL's major events since the building was completed. Traditionally CMLL holds their major events on Friday Nights, replacing their regularly scheduled Super Viernes show.
Storylines
The event featured six professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing scripted feuds, plots and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (referred to as rudos in Mexico, those that portray the "bad guys") or faces (técnicos in Mexico, the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.