mexican national titles: scourge or menace?

My esteemed colleague over at Luchando Libre posted a column on Wednesday, noting the devaluation of titles (especially in recent days), and suggests a new National Lucha Libre commission should be formed, taking the power away from the DF group and extending it over the entire country to make sure the rules and regulations are actually enforced.

This seems a fine, but impractical solution. I do not presume to understand the business of governing Mexico, but I’d guess they have better things to do with their time. Much in the same way where I’d like it if President Obama pushed a college football playoff system thru for the US, but would actually prefer he take care of one or two other more pressing issues. Lucha libre would definitely benefit from an empowered national commission; beyond titles, universal policies about licensing (which greatly varies from state to state now) and nationwide name registry would cut back on some reoccurring issues. I just don’t think it’s a priority for anyone without some hurricane strength pressure to push it thru, and the stuff with Charly Manson was really no more than a drizzle.

The easier option, and the option I’d slightly prefer, is kind of the direct opposite: box y lucha commissions should get out of the business of promoting national titles. There’s no guarantee of a commission backed title meaning anything any more: very few of the actual champions right now would be considered the best in their weight class, or even the best besides those who have world championships. Most are title holders at most, and the commission has shown no power to force them to do more than that. The commissions have no power over how the titles are being defended in a promotion, and they’re irrelevant in regulating titles matches between major promotions, because that’s mostly a thing of the past.

The championships currently representing the Mexican National Commission of Lucha Libre include

• 1 belt, the Minis title, in complete disarray – Mascarita Dorada is the rightful champion, but AAA has the belt and isn’t giving it up. This is actually worse than X-Fly/Charly, yet it never gets mentioned.
• 3 belts held by Octagon & La Parka (the middleweight, cruiserweight, and tag team), which are never defended. A fourth belt, the atomicos team championship, is also sitting in an AAA closet somewhere, despite being vacant and theoretically reverting back to the commission.
• X-Fly as the best heavyweight wrestler in Mexico. Based on the way the Perros never book the Manson/X-Fly feud for the main event, even they don’t believe this.

By those standards, the belts being held by CMLL wrestlers look pretty upstanding, but even those are rarely defended or strangely held by people who wouldn’t normally belong in that division (but it was easier than just creating another minis title.)

Still, does backing those six titles – jokes on different levels – actually help the commission perform their jobs any better? It seems like the opposite, that these titles mock the credibility of the commission every moment they exist, and the commission appears powerless to fix this. They should be out of the business promoting titles.

The only problem is, if we take away the titles from the commission, it kinda seems like we’re leaving them with just a couple jobs:

• pestering Silver King
• props in CMLL angles

In reality, I think they can do a lot of work in protecting the fans – making sure the wrestlers who are in the ring actually should be there, making sure promoters who put on events can actually do it without cheating the fans or the luchadors. That sort of stuff matters a lot more than silly belts no one takes seriously.