Date September 21, 1984 Venue Arena México | Attendance 18,000 City Mexico City, Mexico | |
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Promotion Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre EMLL 51st Anniversary Show 29. Aniversario de Arena México | ||
The EMLL 51st Anniversary Show was a professional wrestling major show event produced by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL) that took place on September 21, 1984 in Arena México, Mexico City, Mexico. The event commemorated the 51st anniversary of CMLL, which would become the oldest professional wrestling promotion in the world. The Anniversary show is EMLL's biggest show of the year, their Super Bowl event. The main event of the show and one of only two documented matches, was a Lucha de Apuestas ("Bet Match") contested under best two-out-of-three falls rules between Atlantis and Talisman where the loser would be forced to unmask after the match in front of everyone in the arena.
Contents
Background
The 1984 Anniversary show commemorated the 51st 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 at least two 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 the undercard of the show.
Event
In the first of only two matches that have been documented, Sangre Chicana faced and defeated Los Infernales team member MS-1 in their Singles match encounter. The main event was the culmination of a long running storyline between the two enmascarados ("Masked Wrestlers") Atlantis and Talisman that started not long after Atlantis joined EMLL in 1984. Atlantis, only in his second year of wrestling at this point in time was targeted by the veteran rudo Talisman who wanted to show Atlantis his "proper place" in the hierarchy of EMLL. The two wrestlers agreed to both put their masks on the line for the 51st Anniversary show, in what was Atlantis first ever Lucha de Apuesta or "Bet Match". In Lucha Libre the Luchas de Apuestas matches are more significant than championship matches and winning the mask of an opponent usually indicates that the promotion is planning on "pushing" that wrestler up to a higher profiled position in the company. The rudo Talisman cheated his way to victory in the first fall, putting Atlantis in a position where he would have to win two straight falls to win the match. With a performance that had the crowd at Arena México solidly behind him Atlantis managed to pin Talisman in both the second and third fall. After the match Talisman was forced to unmask and reveal that his real name was Arturo Beristain.
Aftermath
A few years after losing the Talisman mask Arturo Beristain would adopt a new enmascarado ("Masked") ring character, using the name El Hijo del Gladiador ("Son of El Gladiador"), a storyline relationship as he was not a blood relative of the deceased wrestler El Gladiador.