2010s Lucha Libre Trends: Arena Mexico transforms into a tourist destination

fourth in a series. Previously: 

• Video streaming sites explode access to lucha libre
• +LuchaTV becomes the dominant force of independent lucha libre
• Lucha Underground & FantasticaMania bridges a chasm between lucha libre and the rest of wrestling

A press conference held in Mexico City’s Zocalo on October 17, 2013, announced a new tie-up between Mexico City’s tourist department and CMLL. The city, like many others, has bus lines that run a narrated tour between various tourist destinations. The bus service was going to add a new route, leaving from the Mexico Historic district to arrive at Arena Mexico Friday nights, then returning after the show. Anyone interested could buy a ticket for 500 pesos and would get the bus ride, a ticket to the show (eighth row and back), and get to interact with the wrestlers. A new bus purchased for the concept, with the expectation it would pay for itself after about a year. The hope was the bus line would be able to expand also run for Tuesday shows at some point.

TuriLuchas ran three times a week in 2019. They expanded to Tuesday Arena Mexico shows and Saturday Arena Coliseo shows. The prices have increased (670 pesos.) The initial rollout didn’t mention wrestlers would be hosting the trips, which has become one of the more defining features. There have been times where it appeared the tourist department and CMLL weren’t working together (and indie luchadors hosted the bus rides instead), but they’ve continued on. The tourist buses have also transformed CMLL’s presentation.

CMLL exists in a format unlike any other promotion in the world, running the same days in the same town week after week. The business model involved trying to build a giant circle of local fans who might want to come to a wrestling show and then trying to get as many of those fans to come each week. That’s still part of what CMLL does, but no longer all of it. CMLL’s shows have increasingly drawn from a circle of non-locals, often non-wrestling fans. Those consumers might only be in Mexico City long enough to go to one show and would never return, but Mexico City draws enough tourists to make for new audiences every week. It’s a model moving closer to a Las Vegas stage show or spectacle at a theme park than a serialized wrestling story.

There are still are feuds and rivalries in CMLL. CMLL runs about as many major shows each year as they’ve done for the last few. CMLL runs more tournaments than ever, even if they can’t keep track of them, treating them as their own smaller events. Those things have a lesser effect on CMLL’s bottom line when they have a stable amount of ticket sales unoccupied with the matches presented. The tourist income is a bonus when the “regular” attendance is long and a life preserver when it’s not. It also proved to be a crutch. There are obvious issues in CMLL’s creative process, but those issues are paved by having an additional stream of ticket buyers wowed by seeing the first lucha libre show. The “regular fan” attendance for off-Friday shows snuck to an alarming level in the latter few years of the decade, but supplementing with tourist fans have kept those shows afloat. The influx of tourist fans has been a profitable short term venture, though at the cost of the business putting off addressing it’s structural issues.

CMLL’s attraction of tourist fans is not limited to a few bus routes. Arena Mexico created an in-studio restaurant area, to mild success. The promotion has tried to establish better it’s history by producing a coffee table book emphasizing its history. Mexico City certified Arena Mexico as a place of cultural importance. CMLL has attempted to become more welcoming to outsiders by setting up an in Arena Mexico souvenir stands and airing public service announcements in English and Japanese along with Spanish. The Turiluchas is the most visible of the tourists’ trips to Arena Mexico, but there have been other similar packages with hotels and for Japanese fans. They’ve partnered with uber to try and make it easier for fans to come and leave the arena. CMLL generally continues to concentrate on the live experience of watching shows, with in-show advertisements always focusing on the next event and not any other form of seeing it.

This approach has brought along a different set of risks. A conventional wrestling promotion rises and falls depending on the new stars and exciting feuds. CMLL still is somewhat tied to those ebbs and flows. The ups and downs of the tourism industry are now just as critical. Any situation where people are reluctant to travel to Mexico or Mexico City or feel unsafe in the specific neighborhood of Arena Mexico would have a significant effect on the fortune of the promotion. There have been multiple shooting deaths on the same street as Arena Mexico this decade. They’ve never been CMLL connected violence, and the memories of those incidents of them quickly fade. CMLL’s reputation must remain safe and fun to keep being recommended by tourist agencies.

The changes to CMLL’s market focus seem to have gone as far as affecting the style and presentation of matches. CMLL had been moving towards what it was considered a more family-friendly form for years, with the ban on blood dating back to before this decade. It’s accelerated in this decade. Brawling can get the emotions high but can also feel unsafe and out of control, and few new CMLL luchadors try it. The intricacies of mat-based wrestling are noticeable more to those who watch it a lot. It’s still present in CMLL, but something usually is done with a mental time limit to move on before the crowd gets restless. Spectacular and athletic moves are smooth for a fan watching lucha libre for the first time to understand, and CMLL has more of them than ever now. CMLL, and lucha libre in recent times, has always focused on learned sequences of moves rather than spots themselves. That’s also accelerated in this past decade. CMLL luchadors now concentrate more on perfecting a small series of spots for that crowd, which might see them once, at the expense of wearing out those who see them all the time. It’s led to a CMLL where most of the matches are pretty and work well for those tourists while burning out fans from seeing the same action over and over.

CMLL’s marketing towards tourists has only increased near the end of the decade. (It’s now a place where the tourism board advertises the other attractions.) CMLL figures to continue to mold itself more into appealing to that potential fanbase.