Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre Anniversary Shows

Promoter Salvador Lutteroth held his first show on September 21, 1933 in Arena Modelo, the future site of Arena Mexico. The show featured at least 4 matches, but it may have had more matches as records from the era are sparse.[2]

A year after EMLL's first show Lutteroth held the "EMLL 1st Anniversary Show" on September 21, 1934 and since then the Anniversary show has been held on a Friday in mid to late September each year as the "biggest show" of EMLL/CMLL's year. The Anniversary show has always been held in Mexico City, EMLL/CMLL's home town, and held in Arena Mexico since 1955 when it was built. When EMLL changed its name to Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre in 1990 the events became known as the "CMLL Anniversary Shows" but kept the numbering as it was the same organisation, just "rebranded". CMLL promotes the event as the "Anniversary of Wrestling in Mexico" and not just the anniversary of the promotion, but that is more of a promotional statement than the truth. Several promoters had run wrestling shows in Mexico since the early 1920s, but Lutteroth was the first to run a large scale organized promotion and soon became the dominant promotion.[3]

The show often features high-profile Lucha de Apuestas matches where the competitors "bet" their mask or hair; the main event of at least 29 Anniversary shows has been an Apuesta match, including the last nine in a row. The Anniversary shows have seen the high-profile mask losses of such wrestlers as Mano Negra, Cien Caras, Universo 2000, Black Warrior, Blue Panther, Volador Jr. and Último Guerrero. A large number of wrestlers have lost their hair at the Anniversary show, with the most recent being Negro Casas who was shaved bald after losing an Apuesta match against Místico on the 76th Anniversary Show.[4] The Anniversary shows often see "special guest appearances" of well known wrestlers from the United States, Canada or Japan.