Creation

In 1929, Salvador Lutteroth González, who at the time was a property inspector for the Mexican tax department, moved to Ciudad Juárez, near the Mexico–United States border. During a trip to El Paso, Texas, Lutteroth witnessed a professional wrestling show and was intrigued by it, especially the main event, Greek wrestler Gus Pappas.^[2][3] Four years later, Lutteroth, along with his financial backer Francisco Ahumada, chartered Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL; literally "Mexican Wrestling Enterprise"), the first Mexican-owned wrestling promotion in the country. EMLL held their first show on September 21, 1933, considered the "birth of Lucha libre", and which led to Lutteroth being known as "the father of Lucha Libre".^[4]

EMLL initially tried to book Arena Nacional, the premier boxing venue in Mexico City, but the promoters would not let him rent it, forcing Lutteroth and EMLL to take up residence in Arena Modelo, an abandoned and run-down facility that Lutteroth was able to use as his home base. The concept of Lucha Libre quickly became very popular, so much so that the EMLL 1st Anniversary Show drew a sold-out crowd of 5,000 paying fans. In 1934, an American wrestler debuted in Mexico under a black leather mask, and Lutteroth dubbed him La Maravilla Enmascarada or "The Masked Marvel". In the United States the concept of the masked wrestler was more of a mid-level attraction, but the reaction to La Maravilla Enmascarada led to Lutteroth and EMLL officials to introduce more masks, starting with a wrestler known simply as El Enmascarado ("The Masked Wrestler"), and later El Murciélago Enmascarado ("The Masked Bat"). Through the use of the masks and ring characters EMLL helped create the sacred position of the mask in Lucha libre, making it the ultimate status symbol for luchadors.^[2][3] In the early days of EMLL, most of the top names were Americans, but with time EMLL introduced several Mexican natives that became so popular that they began to main-event most of the EMLL shows. To expand their business, EMLL began working with a number of local wrestling promoters across Mexico, allowing them to use the EMLL name and some of their contracted wrestlers while also gaining access to local wrestlers in return. Each booking office was independent of each other, but the main office in Mexico City had the final say if there were disputes over who would be able to book certain wrestlers.^[2][3]

In 1942, a masked wrestler clad in silver, simply known as El Santo ("the Saint"), a man who go on to become a cultural icon in Mexico and is often cited as the greatest Mexican wrestler of all time.^[5] With the popularity of El Santo as well as other Mexican stars such as Bobby Bonales, Tarzán López, Cavernario Galindo and Gory Guerrero Arena Modelo eventually became too small to accommodate the demand for tickets. To solve the problem Lutteroth financed the construction of Arena Coliseo in Mexico City, the first arena in Mexico built specifically for professional wrestling and the first sports building in Mexico to have built in air conditioning. The arena, nicknamed the "Lagunilla Funnel" due to its interior shape would hold over 8,800 spectators when configured for Lucha libre or boxing. Arena Coliseo began hosting EMLL's annual Anniversary shows starting with the 10th Anniversary show.^[2][6][7]

In 1953, Salvador Lutteroth joined the US based National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), becoming the official NWA territory for all of Mexico, known as "NWA-EMLL" outside Mexico. By joining the NWA, Lutteroth and EMLL gained control of the NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship. They were also able to re-brand their "World Middleweight Championship" to become the NWA World Middleweight Championship and their "World Welterweight Championship" became the NWA World Welterweight Championship.^[8][9][10] In the early 1950s television became as a viable entertainment medium in Mexico which was set to bolster the popularity of EMLL, but Arena Coliseo was not equipped properly for television transmissions. As it turns out luck was on Lutteroth and EMLL's side as Lutteroth and the personnel at Arena Coliseo bought a lottery ticket worth 5 million Pesos. Lutteroth used his portion of the winnings to finance the construction of Arena México, on the location where Arena Modelo used to sit. Arena México enabled EMLL to broadcast their weekly wrestling shows across Mexico, yielding a popularity explosion for the sport.^[2][3] Starting in 1956, with the EMLL 23rd Anniversary Show all anniversary shows were held in Arena México, except the EMLL 46th Anniversary Show. Over time the arena became known as "The Cathedral of Lucha Libre".^{[citation needed]}

Over time, Lutteroth retired from the day-to-day operations of EMLL leaving the company in the hands of his son Salvador "Chavo" Lutteroth Jr.^[2][3]

In 1975, local promoter Francisco Flores, along with EMLL trainer Ray Mendoza broke away from EMLL, citing their displeasure with EMLL's conservative, restrictive promotional style. The two took a number of EMLL's younger wrestlers with them to form Lucha Libre Internacional, S. C, later known as the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA).^[3] With the creation of the UWA EMLL faced a rival national promotion for the first time.^[11]

Becoming CMLL

In the mid-1980s, Chavo Lutteroth II retired, allowing his nephew Paco Alonso, grandson of Chavo Lutteroth I, to take control of EMLL. In the late 1980s, EMLL decided to leave the NWA, seeking to distance themselves from the political wrestling in the National Wrestling Alliance. At that time, EMLL, with the consent of Paco Alonso, the booker Antonio Peña and the Monterrey promoter Carlos Humberto Elizondo, devised the creation of the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL; "World Wrestling Council") to establish a new identity after the NWA split, in order to have their own titles and organize promoters who wanted to join, in addition to sounding more international.^[6] From 1991 through 1993 CMLL created eight "CMLL World" titles in addition to the three NWA branded titles they retained and a slew of other championships.^[12] At the start of the 1990s the company began appearing on the national Televisa network, which led to a second big boom in business due to the renewed national television exposure, in the mid-1970s through the 1980s, magazines and newspapers were the sole medium of Lucha Libre for most Mexicans.^{[citation needed]}

AAA split and rivalry

In the mid-1980s, retired wrestler Antonio Peña became one of the main bookers for EMLL, helping determine who would win matches, what storylines to use and so on, he was also a driving force behind the name change to Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre.^[13] Peña would often clash with Juan Herrera, the other main booker for CMLL at the time. Herrera wanted to maintain the old style of booking with heavyweights such as Atlantis, El Dandy and El Satánico, while Peña wanted to feature younger, faster moving wrestlers such as Konnan, Octagón or Máscara Sagrada. In the end CMLL owner Paco Alonso decided to go with Juan Herrera's booking style.^[14]

After Paco Alonso chose to ignore Peña's booking ideas, Peña began negotiations with Televisa television channel to fund a new wrestling promotion that would provide Televisa with weekly wrestling shows. In 1992 Peña started a booking agency, providing wrestlers and matches for the Televisa owned Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) promotion. While Peña technically owned the promotion Televisa owns the rights to the AAA name.^[13] In a move that mirrored Flores' departure in the 1970s Peña left the promotion alongside a number of young wrestlers who were unhappy with their position in the promotion. With the creation of AAA the promotion replaced the UWA as Mexico's other main wrestling promotion, creating a long running rivalry between CMLL and AAA.^[13] Starting in 1996 CMLL began promoting an annual show in March, first paying homage to Salvador Lutteroth, then later Lutteroth and El Santo and then finally becoming the Homenaje a Dos Leyendas ("Homage to Two Legends") annual show series.^[15][16][17]

CMLL in the 21st century

From 2007 to 2009, CMLL had a working relationship with American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, which saw CMLL's Averno, Rey Bucanero, Último Guerrero and Volador Jr. winning the 2008 TNA World X Cup and TNA worker Alex Shelley winning the 2008 CMLL International Grand Prix. In 2008, CMLL established a working relationship with New Japan Pro-Wrestling as part of "G-1 World", several wrestlers have since toured between the two companies winning titles, including Místico winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and Jushin Thunder Liger winning the CMLL Universal Championship tournament. Since 2011, the two promotions have annually co-promoted events in Japan, under the name Fantastica Mania.

In 2011, CMLL established a working relationship with Japanese women's promotion Universal Woman's Pro Wrestling Reina and announced that the two promotions would create a new championship for women who have been in the professional wrestling industry for less than ten years, called the CMLL-Reina International Junior Championship. This was followed by the establishment of the CMLL-Reina International Championship one year later.^{[citation needed]}

On March 16, 2010, a video was posted on YouTube featuring an interview David Marquez had with NWA Executive Director and Legal Counsel Robert Trobich. Trobich announced that CMLL did not have permission to use the NWA trademark. The rights to usage of the NWA trademark in Mexico is now held by NWA Mexico, represented by Blue Demon, Jr. CMLL replaced the three championships with the NWA World Historic Light Heavyweight Championship, NWA World Historic Middleweight Championship and the NWA World Historic Welterweight Championship.^[18]

On September 19, 2014, CMLL became only the second promotion in the Americas, after WWE, to draw a $1 million gate with their 81st Anniversary Show, headlined by a Mask vs. Mask match between Atlantis and Último Guerrero.^[19]

On November 6, 2014, the promotion made an alliance with the Mexican independent group Lucha Libre Elite to help bring independent wrestlers into CMLL which ended in early 2018.^[20]

On July 6, 2016, NJPW announced that they would broadcast CMLL Friday shows in their video-streaming service, NJPW World.^[21] On August 10, CMLL announced a working relationship with American promotion Ring of Honor (ROH). The two promotions were linked through their separate relationships with NJPW.^[22] The alliance with ROH ended on April 27, 2021.^[23]

On July 7, 2019, CMLL announced the death of the president of the company Paco Alonso (who died a day before, on July 6). On July 10, CMLL appointed Sofía Alonso, Paco's daughter, as the president of the company. On August 26, it was revealed that Sofía had been relieved of her position, with Salvador "Chavo" Lutteroth III becoming the chairman and CEO of PROMECOR-CMLL.^[24]

In September 2021, president of Ice Ribbon Hajime Sato appeared alongside Kounosuke Izui, promoter of Lady's Ring, on an episode of CMLL Informa to announce the establishment of a working relationship between the two promotions and the Mexican-based Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).^[25]

On July 5, 2023, CMLL announced an alliance with the Arena Coliseo Tony Arellano de Torreón, who at a press conference announced this merger in which they will work on several very ambitious projects. Edgar "güero" Noriega, referee and promoter of this company, attended the press conference directly from the CMLL, for several good news, the first being the merger in which this Tony Arellano Arena will be part of the company's programming as it does with the Coliseo de Guadalajara, Puebla, Arena México and Arena Coliseo and now La Laguna is already the headquarters and has been certified.^[26]

On August 3, 2023, the CMLL and Revolution Pro Wrestling announced their alliance beginning with their first joint event, Fantastica Mania UK.^[27][28]

On October 13, 2023, All Elite Wrestling announced a working relationship with CMLL.^[29]

Active tournaments

Past annual tournaments

These are all the tournament that have been held in the past by Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre but have not been promoted in the last two years.