CMLL 92nd Aniversario
September 19, 2025
Arena Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico
Watch: TrillerTV
The biggest show of CMLL’s year takes place on Friday. CMLL’s Aniversario show, the celebration of 92 years of the promotion, follows a year of extraordinary fan support with the now traditional multiman tournament leading to an apuesta match. Aniversario is a good show, it’s also a bit off the best of what CMLL has to offer. It’s not the perfect representation of what has gotten people excited about Arena Mexico in 2025, thanks to a couple of ‘big’ apuesta that just don’t feel strong enough for the biggest show of the year. The magic of the night and the vocal crowd that attends all big CMLL shows are a guarantee, and there’s still a lot to look forward to on this one show. It simply feels like CMLL could’ve stamped this as their year with a definitive show, and they fell back into old patterns of doing just enough to get by.
CMLL Aniversario airs Friday at 10:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time from Arena Mexico. The show will stream live on CMLL’s YouTube channel, though only at the highest 35 USD/month Fan Leyenda level. In a new development, the show will also air on Triller for a one-time 20 USD fee. The Triller broadcast will include both Spanish and English broadcasts. The English broadcast team will be Veda Scott and CMLL’s Miguel Castro, who actually did the last English-language “CMLL” show (the NJPW US presentation of FantasticaMania last year). Triller Spanish broadcast will probably be the usual CMLL team as on the YouTube channel. I expect this show will receive a lot more legal viewership than before, because the price and the language have been such significant mental barriers.
CMLL business was on fire through July and August, with sellouts being commonplace. It’s cooled down a bit in September, though, Arena Mexico still seems to be bringing in more people than almost any non-CMLL promotion does weekly. This Aniversario show sold out a couple of weeks in advance. That’s due to the promotion’s quality, the reliability of the Aniversario shows, and the relentless promotion of the top matches. CMLL frustratingly waited until three days left to announce the full lineup, but the main matches have been known for months. CMLL has run the same ad for those matches on every show since. It is an effective strategy, though I’m looking forward to never seeing that Aniversario ad again.
La Jarochita & Lluvia © vs Persephone & Reyna Isis for the CMLL Women’s Tag Team Championship
No sense in dressing it up: this is the women’s match to ensure there’s a women’s match on this card. It’s a little surprising that Reyna Isis made the cut and Zeuxis got left off the show, but the former world champ’s injury absence may have clouded her chances of making this show, and she got a consolation singles match last week with Catalina. That was good, this will probably be good too. These tag title matches are sub-10-minute sprints when they get a spot on big shows, and ones that seem to be well-rehearsed. That’s fine for this spot and these women. Reyna Isis’s best performances have seemed to come in matches with a lot of time to prepare, and the other women are similar. A fast-paced, high-spot-filled match is a great way to warm up this crowd (or at least the portion who make it to the arena at bell time). I think these women can pull that style in this opener. La Chicas Indomables seem likely to retain over this makeshift team.
I know, among more casual CMLL observers, that Mercedes Mone isn’t on this show defending her title. Part of that is CMLL, which books differently than everyone and doesn’t typically defend its ‘biggest’ titles on its most important shows. Or any shows. (Gran Guerrero is at 213 days and counting without a heavyweight title defense.) The other explanation is that this show didn’t need Mercedes Mone to sell out, since it didn’t without her. Coming up in a few weeks is CMLL’s women’s month, where every Friday night show will feature a women’s match. It is also the worst drawing month for Fridays; CMLL fans don’t see the women as stars. Mercedes getting to add “CMLL Aniversario“ to the list of big shows she’s worked would be great for her personal checklist. Mercedes popping a house by lending her star power to Persephone and the rest of the CMLL women would be a more meaningful accomplishment. I’m unsure if it will work, whether the Mexico City fans will show up in greater numbers than at the other women’s shows. It’s a feather in her hat if she can make it happen.
Hijo del Villano III & Villano III Jr. vs Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja © for the CMLL World Tag Team Championship
The brothers Chavez, Ángel de Oro & Niebla Roja, are in the midst of a 4.5-year and 24 defense tag title reign. They’re also in match two on this card, because they’re truly more of the top of the card gatekeepers and the guys they trust to reel people in. They’re the orderly tag team, and the Villanos are the chaotic ones. Villano III Jr. (the one with the tattoos) is back after seven months out with a knee injury, and seems to be moving pretty well. He also has a habit of being a wild man in the ring, and seems to bring out the same in his otherwise sedate brother.
Different styles should make for a great fight. The problem here is the time. The best Hermanos Chavez matches, both as a team and in singles, are those where they have fifteen to twenty minutes to work with. Their style is built on a lot of nearfalls and escalating tension, and that needs some duration to really work. They’re not going to get that sort of time on a show like this; maybe ten minutes max. The flipside is the same big show Mexico City crowd that hates the Atlantis family seems to love the Villanos just as much. Maybe they’ll bring enough energy to the match to up the emotion in half the time.
I’d prefer the Chavez title reign to end when the tag title match is the primary focus of the show, specifically when they have opponents coming in hot. That’s not what is happening with this one. CMLL arbitrally declared the Villanos the number one contenders, and they’ve since lost tag matches for no reason. Still, it’s a big show, and this reign has to end sometime; CMLL seems behind the Villanos, and so there’s a reasonable chance the title change happens here.
Atlantis Jr., Máscara Dorada, Neón vs Hechicero, Volador Jr., Zandokan Jr.
It’s six important people who don’t otherwise have a match on this show. It doubles as the quarterly chance for a bunch of Mexico City fans to book Atlantis Jr. for daring to exist. None of these guys were part of the ‘unofficial last chance‘ tournament to get on the card, which signaled there was something like this booked, even if CMLL wasn’t talking about it. (This one was the last match CMLL announced.) Zandokan’s knee injury last week might limit him; he’s missed his last two matches and might be skipping this one if it were any other Friday. Dorada and Hechicero may have other matches and a long flight to worry about this week. Still, that list of talent is impressive. The bigger issue with this card is that these lucahdors are in a random trios match instead of having anything more meaningful to do on this show.
Templario & Titán vs Barboza & Difunto in Copa Independencia
A Copa Independencia tournament for a spot on the Aniversario has become a staple of this CMLL era. 2025 is the first year they’ve run it as a tag team tournament, and that change made it obvious which one of those teams would be. Titan and Templario’s rivalry spanned from March to July, centered on the question of who was the better of the two most skilled luchadors in the promotion. They split their singles matches, brought in their NJPW allies, and split those trios matches as well. Templario proposed to Titan that, if they were so good against each other, perhaps they’d be even stronger as a team. Titan accepted this reasoning. Templario then went further, pointing out that Titan’s NJPW faction no longer exists, and that he’d make a great member of the United Empire. (Templario cares about NJPW factions more than almost anyone watching NJPW.) Titan refused the offer, but agreed to form a pair. The team has been successful, including a win over possible future tag team champions Los Villanos. However, Titan has continued to ignore Templario’s prompts to put up the United Empire hand signal. The tension and success made this duo obvious candidates for the final: will they win, and Titan finally agree to join UE? Will they lose in a way that restarts their personal rivalry? Or will nothing much happen because it’s CMLL, and sometimes nothing just happens?
Difunto & Barboza are here because tag team matches require at least two teams and because this has been the year of Galeon Fantasma’s ascension. Zandokan and Difunto are the strongest duo in that team, but CMLL used that combination for an AEW tag team title match last week (and Zandokan got hurt), so this has a bit of variety. Barboza performed well in his recent big singles match with Templario. The Arena Mexico crowd has really embraced Difunto as one of their favorites in the last year. He hasn’t always meshed well with his opponents here, but his flashy moves and bumps should work well in this match. The Difunto/Bandido interactions have been a recent highlight; maybe Ring of Honor can run that for their traditional Halloween-themed match.
My guess is the Templario/Titan team will win, and take that partnership to NJPW in the near future – yet I also think them losing and going back at each other is the more intriguing option. They’re still missing that third tiebreaker match.
Rey Bucanero vs Felino in a hair versus hair match
Back in 2011, CMLL partnered with the Mexican version of A&E on a reality documentary series called El Luchador. Bucanero and Felino were stars on the show and, by the scripted nature of the “reality” show, ended up battling each other as the final two of a multiman cage match that main evented Aniversario. Felino got Bucanero’s hair that time. The two found their way into a multiman cage match in December 2014, and Bucanero got Felino’s hair that time. They had been teammates more recently. CMLL has shuffled most of its male roster into one team or another. That meant Felino, Felino Jr., and Rey Bucanero quietly became a deep undercard trio for lack of any better idea. That went along fine for a few months, until Bucanero’s team wrestled his cousin Hombre Bala’s team, and Bucanero objected to how they were cheating his relative. Felino and son soon had enough of Bucanero, kicked him out of the team, and kicked him all the way to the tecnico side. Every promotion needs a B-show feud, and this serves perfectly fine. Strangely, it’s taking up space on an Aniversario.
Both Felino and Rey Bucanero were top-tier luchadors. Bucanero’s team with Ultimo Guerrero is one of the best in the promotion’s history, and probably was the best team in the world for a time. Felino was an underrated great worker through the ’90s and early ’00s. He seemingly never got bigger chances because CMLL decided they had room to push only one Casas brother, and he wasn’t ever going to be better than Negro Casas. It’s also been a decade or more since either one of them had routinely good matches. Rey Bucanero was a big bump taker in his prime, and shows the costs of that style as he moves around. Felino’s gotten really good at doing very little. These guys have decorated careers, but they’re not stars in this promotion’s history the same way a Blue Panther or Atlantis im. They’ve rarely appeared on the Friday shows until this feud started, and it hasn’t escalated to any special degree. Bucanero’s tried harder of the two to make this work, yet this still feels like a semi-main match on a lesser CMLL event. CMLL isn’t about booking everyone on the biggest show of the year; this match on the show is also a decision to leave off a lot of people who’ve been more impressive this year.
It doesn’t make sense to have a Rey Bucanero versus Felino match given what we know, which has led to speculation trying to fill that gap. This feud did not start as a hair feud; it started as Felino challenging Rey Bucanero to a retirement match. Maybe it’ll effectively end as one. CMLL has been quietly scaling down work for the older, less hungry veterans. CMLL has booked some people so infrequently that it’s unclear if they’re still part of the promotion. (Have we seen the end of Leono?) Bucanero and Felino are a little bit bigger stars than the group getting phased out right now, but it’s no sure thing either man would still be used much, if not for this feud. It’s another aspect of why it’s frustrating to see this match here; there’s a feel of CMLL’s prioritizing keeping old friends around over putting together the best show. Whatever the reason for this feud, it’s pretty much over as soon as they get their heads shaved, and so is the reason to keep booking them. Maybe that haircut will include an official goodbye, and that’ll explain why this match happened in the first place. Or maybe this is just the start of a quiet fade out.
Given this feels like the end, there’s no real advantage to either one winning. I’d be amazed if this were a setup to either have a man lose to a bigger name or to have a younger wrestler down the line. It’s a 1-1 record; maybe the correct outcome is they go to a draw and both get sent off with bald (and the payoff for that goes with it). Proving they belong in this spot is the bigger victory than the outcome.
MJF versus Místico, with the CMLL World Light Heavyweight Championship and Mistico’s mask on the line
MJF antagonized Mistico through the summer in AEW, then returned to Mexico to go after the CMLL Light Heavyweight championship. There was a brief and unsuccessful attempt to explain MJF’s motivation as going after the title Mistico cared the most about; this was instead something he’d barely competed for in his twenty-one years in CMLL. MJF would seem silly going for a middleweight title, Mexican fans would object to a guy the size of Mistico being heavyweight champ (hi Vikingo), and so they’re fighting over the light heavyweight title. AEW has had MJF declare it the “CMLL World Championship”, likely to dumb it down for American fans who perceive “light heavyweight“ as “lower midcard”. That part’s hokey even though understandable. MJF putting up a title instead of his hair is the same; it feels like a compromise decision to secure the big Aniversario apuesta match without facing the consequences. There’s a little bit of cruft here, and there’s a slight bit of the ansty feeling NJPW fans must’ve gotten of American wrestlers using the promotion as a platform for their dream matches. MJF can’t go back and feel what it would’ve been like to do his character in the 1970s, but he gets something not far off it.
And yet, underneath all of that, there’s a really good and simple match here. MJF pivoted to a general disrespect of Mistico, CMLL, and Mexican wrestling. CMLL is more than happy right now to rally wrestling fans about defending Mexican wrestling against an evil foreigner attempting to change and destroy it. CMLL has always had a fair amount of “us versus the outsiders”, and has turned up the idea of being the protectors of lucha libre Mexicana even stronger following the AAA sale. Mistico prefers to wrestle against people who work totally heel, and that’s MJF to a tee. It’s going to be an easy match to get a crowd reaction, and everyone saw how much the crowd cared back at Grand Slam Mexico. That was an impressive match with an incomplete finish. They were saving that conclusion for here, and there’s no doubt we’ll get it this time.
My only concern is that MJF tends to be a bit too cute in his matches. He’s particularly fallen in love with the idea of giving the fans a finish they didn’t expect to see, only for some convoluted finish to keep the match going. It mostly worked for Chris Jericho in his ROH title versus mask match with Bandido. It was a significant detriment in MJF’s title match with Hangman Page. There’s going to be an overwhelming desire to have a moment where it appears MJF has accomplished the unthinkable and taken Mistico’s mask, only for the match to continue for reasons that do not entirely make sense in the context of CMLL. I would recommend avoiding this temptation. I think Chris Jericho’s problems last year stemmed from trying to make it more complicated than it needed to be, trying to make it more US-style than it needed to be. The KISS principle will work fine here; near falls are great, but don’t deviate too much from the Mistico formula. It exists because it works. If they don’t get too adventurous here, we should be talking about MJF having two very different yet very great matches in 24 hours come Saturday evening.
Averno & Último Guerrero vs Esfinge & Valiente and Bárbaro Cavernario & Dragón Rojo Jr. in a relevos suicidas match
It’s a three-way tag match. The winning team will immediately face off in an apuesta match; these guys are battling for the right to put themselves in Aniversario history. Unlike last year’s scenario, these are very much set teams of rivals: the final match of the night will be Averno versus Ultimo Guerrero in a hair match, OR Esfinge versus Valiente in a mask match, OR Barbaro Cavernario versus Dragon Rojo Jr. in a hair match. There’s no mixing and matching.
There were a lot of fan complaints about the apuesta match being in the semi-main last year. The disappointing Jericho/Mistico match compounded the issue, and CMLL decided not to make the same mistake again. The difference is that none of these guys is quite as beloved as Hechicero last year, and nothing might reach the heights of his mask match with Euforia last year. There’s a possibility that fans who complained about Mistico and Jericho being the main event last year might view Mistico and MJF as the real main event this year, and possibly leave early, too. I have complete confidence that whatever match comes out of this will be watchable; there’s just not a must-see combination of the three teams.
You can quickly discount Barbaro Cavernario and Dragon Rojo Jr. as possible finalists. Barbaro Cavernario’s hair is too valuable for him to lose in a tournament. They’d build the entire show around him losing his long hair for the first time. Dragon Rojo lost his mask two years ago on this show, and it’s unlikely he’ll suffer another significant loss so soon. It’s not the right time either. Dragon Rojo’s new unit, Los Dragons, may be a bit corny, but it has surprisingly gained traction as a midcard act. It wouldn’t make sense to kill their unexpected momentum. The issue between Cavernario and Dragon Rojo began when Rojo initially agreed to form a Los Barbaros trio with Cavernario and Terrible. However, he quickly decided he didn’t want to spend his life playing caveman – or playing second fiddle in a group, depending on your perspective. Dragon Rojo got beaten up a few times for that decision, but ended up getting to his own unit. He’ll happily take that trade.
A three-way tag match is peculiar in CMLL – two or four is more typical. It feels like either the Felino/Rey Bucanero feud was supposed to be part of all this, or that one of these existing three was a late addition. Barbaro Cavernario, with his easily identifiable gimmick and slight occasional comic overtones, would fit right in with WWE’s presentation of AAA. There have been no reports of WWE going after current CMLL wrestlers to this point, and SuperLuchas reported their focus had switched towards independent wrestlers, a surprising pivot given how thin the Mexican scene is for international wrestlers right now. Still, someone might have decided to throw Cavernario a bone to keep him happily in the fold.
That leaves teams of Averno & Ultimo Guerrero and Esfinge & Valiente. One rivalry has gone on for decades; the other only feels that way. Esfinge and Valiente were the two left out of last year’s Aniversario main event. They again missed out on the apuesta match at Homenaje a Dos Leyendas back in March. CMLL has been teasing this match for over a year, with two missed opportunities, which should build anticipation for them to settle it. It hasn’t worked out that way. It’s still just Esfinge and Valinete, two wrestlers with their own fan bases but not particularly popular, and they haven’t elevated this feud beyond generic. The near misses haven’t built up as much anticipation as I expected. Instead of being eager to see the match finally, the fan reaction is more that these guys might not be that good if they can never win the matches to qualify for the apuesta match. The match will undoubtedly be tense if it finally happens on this show; there’s nothing bigger than an unmasking in CMLL’s universe. I’m not sure anyone will be bothered if they fail to make it happen again.
Averno & Ultimo Guerrero are the actual ancient issue. Their issues started in the early 2000s. Ultimo Guerrero betrayed his mentor, Satanico, causing Satanico to use his satanic powers to transform Rencor Latino into Averno. (CMLL was slightly different in 2001.) That feud eventually set them as competition for the #1 rudo spot in CMLL. They serve the same roles with different styles. Ultimo Guerrero punishes tecnicos with power moves, while Averno tends to be a trickster. UG’s big matches are built around his big moves, while Averno’s tend to be more about setting up his opponents. Ultimo Guerrero has traditionally been the fan favorite, and is more or less a fan favorite who happens to be on the rudo side nowadays. Averno is a rudo through and through. It felt out of character to see Averno play the hero against MJF in their title match. There’s a chance Averno might be the favorite of the two if he advances to the finals. The recent passing of Rodolfo Ruiz, Averno’s father and a longtime CMLL wrestler and referee, is still on everyone’s mind. Guerrero would be the firm favorite to win if it came down to these two, just like Esfinge would be the likely winner if it were him and Valiente.
Averno and Ultimo Guerrero give me more confidence in a memorable finish to this Aniversario. Esfinge and Valiente (and even Dragon Rojo & Barbaro Cavernario, if it happens) will be good. I’ve come to trust the old guys more, given their history of main-eventing major shows. The most emotional ending would be Valiente, surrounded by his luchador children, having to surrender his mask. That seems like the most likely outcome on paper, but that’s what I wrote for the last two times. I’m going to guess that perhaps Ultimo Guerrero gets his arms raised tonight, though I wouldn’t wager money on it.
I usually try to end this with why a casual fan may (or may not) want to spend money on this lucha libre show. This one’s easy: it’s CMLL, they’re having a hot year, and this is the biggest show they’re going to run. The 92nd CMLL Aniversario is the CMLL show to buy if you’re ever going to buy one of these. As a CMLL watcher, I’m a little disappointed they’re not maxing out the possibilities; Blue Panther has the night off. Los Viajeros have the night off. There are plenty more who’ve been an integral part of making 2025 who got left off. CMLL squeezed other important wrestlers into marginal roles. Still, given the level CMLL has been in 2025, the range of outcomes for a big show only goes from “fun show” to “one of the best of the year.” The time might be a factor, and it may not have seven straight killer matches. It’s still big apuesta matches in the biggest lucha libre arena in the world, and those never disappoint.
