Date August 15, 1969 Venue Arena México | Attendance 17,100 City Mexico City, Mexico | |
Promotion Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre EMLL 36th Anniversary Show 14. Aniversario de Arena México | ||
The EMLL 36th Anniversary Show was a professional wrestling major show event produced by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL) that took place on August 15, 1969 in Arena México, Mexico City, Mexico. The event commemorated the 36th anniversary of EMLL, which would become the oldest professional wrestling promotion in the world. This was the first Anniversary show to take place in August. The Anniversary show is EMLL's biggest show of the year.
Contents
Background
The 1969 Anniversary show commemorated the 36th anniversary of the Mexican professional wrestling company Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (Spanish for "Mexican Wrestling Promotion"; EMLL) holding their first show on September 22, 1933 by promoter and founder Salvador Lutteroth. EMLL was rebranded early in 1992 to become Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre ("World Wrestling Council"; CMLL) signal their departure from the National Wrestling Alliance. With the sales of the Jim Crockett Promotions to Ted Turner in 1988 EMLL became the oldest, still-operating wrestling promotion in the world. Over the years EMLL/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 EMLL/CMLL's major events since the building was completed. Traditionally EMLL/CMLL holds their major events on Friday Nights, replacing their regularly scheduled Super Viernes show.
Storylines
The event featured an undetermined number of 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. Due to the nature of keeping mainly paper records of wrestling at the time no documentation has been found for some of the matches of the show.
Event
The 36th EMLL anniversary show featured an unknown number of matches, traditionally EMLL has five to six matches per show, but at times have had more or less and the total number has not been verified. The only match verified for the show saw El Solitario, the most popular wrestler at the time, face off against Rayo de Jalisco in a best two-out-of three falls match for Rayo's NWA World Middleweight Championship. El Soltario took the second and third fall of the match and with that also the NWA World Middleweight Championship.
Aftermath
El Solitario reigned as the NWA World Middleweight Champion until June 28, 1970, when he lost the title to Mashio Koma.