Date September 30, 1988 Venue Arena México | Attendance 17,000 City Mexico City, Mexico | |
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Promotion Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre EMLL 55th Anniversary Show 33. Aniversario de Arena México | ||
The EMLL 55th Anniversary Show was a professional wrestling major show event produced by Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL) that took place on September 30, 1988 in Arena Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. The event commemorated the 55th 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 was a Lucha de Apuestas ("Bet match) where both Máscara Año 2000 and Mogur wagered their masks on the outcome of the match, with the loser being forced to take off his mask at the end of the show. Mogur had unmasked As Charro at the previous year's anniversary show and put his mask on the line once again. The show also featured a match for the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship and a match for the Mexican National Welterweight Championship as well as an undetermined number of other matches.
Contents
Background
The 1988 Anniversary show commemorated the 55th 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 three 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 rest of the show.
The main event storyline saw Mogur attacked repeatedly by rudo Máscara Año 2000 in the months following Mogur's Lucha de Apuesta, Mask vs. Mask match victory over As Charro at the previous year at the EMLL 54th Anniversary Show. EMLL built up the storyline tension between the two in a number of main event matches, often with Máscara Año 2000 teaming with his brothers Cien Caras and Universo 2000 (Collectively known as Los Hermanos Dinamita; "The Dynamite Brothers") while Mogur would team with various EMLL tecnicos. Bestia Salvaje won the Mexican National Welterweight Championship from Águila Solitaria on September 3, 1988, only four weeks before the Anniversary show. EMLL deemed El Hijo del Santo as the next challenger for the title, who at the time was six years into a career that would see him become one of the top names in Lucha Libre only a few years later. The American Ken Timbs, better known as Fabuloso Blondy when he worked in Mexico put his NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship on the line against one of EMLL's top names, Lizmark. Fabuloso Blondy had actually won the NWA Championship from Lizmark on March 20, 1988 and was embroiled in a long running feud with him at this point in time, where this championship match was simply the next stage of the storyline.