CMLL announces five fan voted title matches for their 09/24 Aniversario show

CMLL Informa announced the five title matches that will take place on the 09/24 Aniversario show and the possible participants. I’ve listed them in the order they were announced on the Informa. The order they’ll take place will be based on the total votes. You’re allowed to go to the website one vote per day per IP address.

The titles on the line:

Mexican National Women’s Tag Team Championship, currently held by La Jarochita & Lluvia

Possible challengers:

• Dalys & Stephanie Vaquer
• Dark Silueta & Reyna Isis
• Princesa Sugehit & La Guerrera
• Marcela & Amapola

Mexican National (Men’s) Tag Team Championship, currently held by Rey Cometa & Espiritu Negro

• Blue Panther Jr. & Dark Panther
• Akuma & Espanto Jr.
• Fugaz & Esfinge
• Stigma & Pegasso
• Magia Blanca & Halcon Suriano Jr.

CMLL World Tag Team Championship, held by Mistico & Caristico

• Volador Jr. & Titan
• Los Gemelo Diablos
• Ultimo Guerrero & Gran Guerrero

The final two titles are vacant titles. The top four candidates will advance to an elimination match in September and the surviving two wrestlers will compete for the title on the Anniversario show.

Mexican National Middleweight Championship, last held by Octagon in AAA. The top four finishers will wrestle on September 10th.

• Angel de Oro
• Templario
• El Audaz
• Felino Jr.
• Enfermero Jr.
• Dragon Rojo Jr.
• Star Jr.
• El Coyote
• Hombre Bala Jr.

Mexican National Heavyweight Championship, last held by Diamante Azul. The top four finishers will wrestle on September 3rd.

• Euforia
• Hechicero
• Barbaro Cavernario
• El Terrible
• Panterita del Ring
• El Valiente
• Atlantis Jr.

Last year’s show has seven title matches, and five is consistent with the cards they’ve run of late. There’s no word how long these polls will be open; it may end as quickly as the end of the month to set lineups for those September shows.

Like every other web poll, this still can be gamed if someone’s sufficiently motivated. I expect there won’t be a lot of difference between the fourth and fifth place finishers in the two vacant title polls, so that seems where someone from the outside could most easily manipulate the result. The problem is CMLL has dummy proofed it by advancing four and deciding themselves who gets in the title match. Templario & Hechicero are the run-away favorites and I think CMLL would be fine with either of those winning, so it doesn’t really matter who else is in the match with them. A dedicated person or team probably could screw with the votes enough to get a final four like Hombre Bala, Enfermero, Coyote, and Audaz where CMLL would have no idea what to do, but that’s a lot of work and I don’t think anyone cares enough.

The national titles are meant to be managed by the Mexico City lucha libre commission, not any promotion. That’s meant those championships usually go with the wrestlers when they leave promotions, the promotion can’t normally just declare them vacant and decide their own champion. It’s a reason why AAA only uses in-house titles, and it’s a big part of the reason Vangellys became a CMLL wrestler – he won/acquired the national light heavyweight championship in the indies, and CMLL brought him on board in exchange for him losing it to Mistico (Caristico.)

DMT Azul should still be the national heavyweight champion by those rules. (Octagon also should be middleweight champion, but also he hasn’t defended the title in fifteen years and it’s possible some deal was struck there.) DMT Azul issued a statement saying he believes himself to still be the champion and wants the commission to put a stop to CMLL taking the title away. CMLL, in their announcement, specifically said they had permission from the commission to declare new champions. The missing piece appears to be the Mexico City commission declaring DMT Azul made an unapproved defense of the heavyweight title, which has been grounds to strip a champion in the past. The problem with that idea is the unapproved defense was against Ultimo Guerrero in a match seemingly booked with CMLL approval months ago, and the commission is taking action on it at a time in a way that only serves to benefit CMLL. This is the commission doing CMLL’s bidding, and we can only speculate why they’d do so.

All those words and yet the most important part is CMLL has too many dumb titles and adding another title is even dumber. They have five titles that haven’t been defended in 500 days; they clearly don’t care about most of the ones they have. I’ve believed the titles are mostly to keep the wrestler happy, which may be needed more than ever with the current payouts. It’s also something that’s worked less and less, given NGD bailing after finally winning the world trios titles. I find it hard to believe CMLL thinks this is all appealing to their fans but they do live in a total different headspace than anyone else.

Each title has a significant favorite so far.

• Hechicero is far and away winning the heavyweight title. Cavernario will likely finish in the top four, and everyone else is close enough that they’ve got a chance. I suspect Sanson was intended to be in this poll; it’s gotta be two of the bigger guys and Cuatrero was a middleweight champion. Atlantis Jr. fighting for a heavyweight title is funny, something the commission would’ve stopped in the past.
• Templario is leading the middleweight title, not as much as Hechicero but enough that he’ll definitely be in. Dragon Rojo is a solid second behind him. Everyone else is close for the final two spots, and it’s telling that hard pushed acts like Angel de Oro & Felino Jr. have less fan support than opening match wrestler Coyote. This would’ve been a logical place for Soberano Jr., who may still be out with injury.
• Volador & Titan are winning the tag team title poll easily, which should be no surprise from the names included. (I presume Forastero & Cuatrero were intended to be the NGD team in this list, and they may have made it more of a race.) It’s possible someone was delusional about the fan support the Gemelos or the Guerreros were going to have. I think it’s more likely this is Guerrero and/or the programming committee taking a low-cost loss they can point to as being team players the next time they booking something favorable to the Guerreros (or the Diablos.) It’s a very US thing for wrestlers to carefully lose the battles that don’t matter – and a pandemic Aniversario show doesn’t truly matter – to build up credibility for later. Maybe it’s a Mexican wrestling thing.
• The Panthers should be the favorites for the tag team titles. They just won a Copa Dinastias (that everyone already forgot happened) and they’re the only challenging team who gets pushed. They don’t always do well in past polls and are currently in second. It’s the Akuma & Espanto Jr. team that’s leading at the moment, likely based on existing social media support for Akuma & Demus’ YouTube channel. It’s possible for other teams to catch up but Ola Negra looks like the Cometa/Espiritu prelim act rising up due to fan poll this year.
• Dalys doesn’t do well in polls but Stephanie Vaquer has a lot of fans and a Chilean wrestling community who are thrilled she’s representing them and will support her. That may be enough to get them the tag title match; it’s got them in the lead so far. Dark Silueta & Reyna Isis have their own fan support and may have the best shot at pushing them out. This is the closest race for first.

The CMLL upcoming “big match” calender

• 08/20: CMLL Universal de Amazonas qualifying cibernetico
• 08/27: CMLL Universal de Amazona final: Dalys versus 08/20 winner
• 09/03: Mexican Heavyweight Championship decider
• 09/10: Mexican Middleweight Championship decider
• 09/17: Barbaro Cavernario versus Felino, hair versus hair
• 09/24: CMLL Aniversario with five title matches

Only the 08/27 show is known to be airing live (and, as far as I’ve seen, only for people who bought it last month so far.) I presume September 17th and September 24th will air live in some way but there are no guarantees with CMLL. Except more titles.