Lucha Libre World Cup (2015)

The Lucha Libre World Cup (2015) was a professional wrestling event and tournament organized by Mexican professional wrestling promotion Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA) with the financial backing of the Grupo Modelo brewery, with Victoria Beer as the official sponsor. The tournament included a number of three-man tag teams, referred to as trios in Lucha Libre, two of which represented AAA itself, another team from outside AAA to represent Mexico as well as teams representing Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), Lucha Underground, Ring of Honor (ROH), All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) and Pro Wrestling Noah as well as an "International team". The tournament was originally announced as "Copa Victoria", but later rebranded as the "Lucha Libre World Cup".

Lucha Libre World Cup
Official poster for the tournament
PromotionLucha Libre AAA Worldwide
DateMay 24, 2015[1]
CityMexico City, Mexico[1]
VenuePalacio de los Deportes[1]
Attendance17,000[2]
Event chronology
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Lucha Libre World Cup chronology
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2016

Background

The event featured eight professional wrestling matches, in which some wrestlers may have been involved in pre-existing scripted feuds or storylines and others were matched up with no back story outside of the tournament. Wrestlers themselves portrayed either villains (referred to as "Rudos" in Mexico) or fan favorites ("Tecnicos" in Mexico) as they competed in matches with pre-determined outcomes. AAA originally announced that together with Grupo Modelo, specifically "Victorian Beer", to arrange "Copa Victoria", a trios tournament with teams from around the world competing in a one night tournament. At the time of the announcement AAA revealed that the first team to represent AAA would be the team of Alberto el Patron (team captain), Myzteziz and Rey Mysterio Jr..[1] In late April it was announced that former AAA regular Kenzo Suzuki would captain a team representing All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) that would also include Tiger Mask III and Masamune.[3] In addition former holder of the AAA World Tag Team Championship, Taiji Ishimori, would captain a team representing Pro Wrestling Noah consisting of himself, Yoshihiro Takayama and Atsushi Kotoge.[3] It was also announced that Matt Hardy would captain the team representing the U.S. based Total Nonstop Action and Lucha Underground. The other two team members would be Mr. Anderson (TNA) and Johnny Mundo (LU).[4] AAA also invited their rival promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) to take part in the tournament, but they declined the offer.[5] AAA announced that they would hold qualifiers to determine the second team representing AAA, with the winners of three qualifying matches earning the right to represent AAA. Fênix, Electroshock and El Hijo del Fantasma; La Parka, El Texano Jr. and Cibernético took place on April 30 with Psycho Clown, El Zorro and Averno to took place May 2.[6] Winning their respective matches, El Hijo del Fantasma, El Texano Jr. Psycho Clown became members of the second AAA team.[7][8] It has also been revealed that Blue Demon Jr., Dr. Wagner Jr. and El Solar would represent Mexico. The team called "The Rest of the World" would be represented by the Scottish Drew Galloway, Puerto Rican El Mesías and Angélico from South Africa.[4]

Tournament rules

AAA vice president Dorian Roldán explained the rules in a video uploaded to AAA's official YouTube channel. The tournament would consist of trios matches structured in quarterfinals, semi-finals and a final, plus an extra match to determine the third place. The bouts are slated to have a 15-minute time limit. If the time limit is reached without a clear winner, each of the participating teams selects one member, and the two picked wrestlers face off in a 5-minute sudden death in which the winning wrestler gets the victory for his team. There will be as many sudden deaths as necessary to determine a victor.

Teams
Team Team member
Dream Team El Patrón Alberto (Captain)
Myzteziz
Rey Mysterio Jr.
Team AAA El Hijo del Fantasma
El Texano Jr.
Psycho Clown
Team MexLeyendas Blue Demon Jr.
Dr. Wagner Jr.
El Solar
Team "Rest of the World" Drew Galloway
Angélico
El Mesías
Team TNA/Lucha Underground Matt Hardy (Captain)
Mr. Anderson
Johnny Mundo
Team ROH/Lucha Underground Moose
ACH
Brian Cage
Team Noah Taiji Ishimori (Captain)
Yoshihiro Takayama
Atsushi Kotoge
Team AJPW Kenzo Suzuki (Captain)
Tiger Mask III
Masamune
Other on-screen personnel
Role: Name:
Spanish commentary Leo Riano[9]
Adolfo Morales[9]
Hugo Savinovich[9]
English commentary Matt Striker[10]
Vampiro[10]
Jeff Jarrett[10]
(semi-finals)
Ring announcer Jesus Zuniga
Judges El Fantasma[10]
Dos Caras[10]
El Canek[10]
Arturo Rivera[10]
Villano IV[10]
Villano V[10]
Cien Caras[10]
Máscara Año 2000[10]
Universo 2000[10]

Aftermath

At the press conference after the show Rey Mysterio dedicated the victory to Perro Aguayo Jr. who had died a few weeks earlier after an accident during a match where he wrestled against Rey Mysterio.[11] Following the event it was announced that Dr. Wagner Jr. had suffered a "Second degree cervical sprain" from the finish of the 3rd place match and would be unable to wrestle for 20 to 25 days.[12] Dr. Wagner Jr. would wrestle the following Friday on a show in Tijuana.

Reception

Apolo Valdés, who writes about lucha libre on the sports website MedioTiempo rated the show as an 8.5 out of 10, noting that while the winning team was predictable the matches were very entertaining. He also hope that some of the competitors would return to AAA at a future date, listing ACH, Drew Galloway, Masamune, Matt Hardy and Johnny Mundo as those he would like to see at future AAA events.[13] Josh Boutwell, who writes a weekly Lucha column for wrestleview stated that the event had a very special atmosphere, making it feel like a SuperBowl level event for AAA. He cited the semi-final match between the Dream Team and Team ROH/LU as the best match of the night. His biggest complaints related to the feed, especially on the English language feed and gave the show itself an "A".[14] Rob Barry of "Voices of Wrestling", which regularly covers Lucha Libre had a very different take on the show, calling it "a new leader for worst show of the year", citing the English commentary and the refereeing as particularly bad and that the show dragged on.[15]

Awards

At final of the event, before the podium medals were given to its respective winners, there was given awards to some wrestlers. Judging panel gave "Wrestler of the Night" award to Rey Mysterio Jr., "Dive of the Night" award to Angélico, and "Match of the Night" award to bout contested between Dream Team and Team ROH/Lucha Underground.

Tournament bracket
 
Quarter-finalsSemi-finalsFinal
 
          
 
 
 
 
Dream Team Sub
 
 
 
Team Noah [10]
 
 Dream Team Sub
 
 
 
 Team ROH/Lucha Underground [10]
 
Team AAA Pin
 
 
 
 Team ROH/Lucha Underground [10]
 
 Dream Team Pin
 
 
 
 Team TNA/Lucha Underground [10]
 
Team AJPW Sub
 
 
 
 Team MexLeyendas [10]
 
 Team MexLeyendas Pin
 
 
 
 Team TNA/Lucha Underground [10] 3rd place match
 
Team Rest of the World Pin
 
 
 
 Team TNA/Lucha Underground [10]
 
 Team ROH/Lucha Underground Pin
 
 
 Team MexLeyendas [10]
 
gollark: It says so in the blog post.
gollark: Also, ALL my hills are weird, thank YOU.
gollark: Yes, I am looking at their blog post, and honestly the idea of them "proactively" reviewing servers without reports is kind of worrying?
gollark: Hmm, looks like they fixed the not disappearing bug, that's good.
gollark: It is, at this point, somewhat politic*ized*, at least, and there are a bunch of organizations and stuff involved in it. Hold on while I refresh so I can see exactly what it says.

References
  1. "AAA, Noah, AJPW, TNA y ROH en Mundial de Lucha Libre". MedioTiempo (in Spanish). MSN. April 21, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  2. "¡Victoria para México!". Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (in Spanish). Retrieved May 26, 2015.
  3. "AAA: Se anuncian los integrantes de los Grupos AJPW y Noah para la Lucha Libre World Cup" (in Spanish). SuperLuchas Magazine. April 23, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  4. "Equipo listo de TNA-LU para el Mundial de Lucha Libre". MedioTiempo (in Spanish). MSN. May 4, 2015. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  5. Boutwell, Josh (May 10, 2015). "Viva la Raza! Lucha Weekly for 5/10/15". Wrestleview. Retrieved May 24, 2015.
  6. "AAA: Comienzan las eliminatorias para conformar al equipo México II" (in Spanish). SuperLuchas Magazine. April 10, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  7. "AAA: Palenque Feria Mesoamericana Tapachula, Chiapas" (in Spanish). Lucha Libre AAA. May 1, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2015.
  8. "AAA: Resultados Lienzo Charro Pachuca, Hidalgodate=May 2, 2015" (in Spanish). Lucha Libre AAA. Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  9. Hernandez, Kennedy (May 25, 2015). "El Dream Team victorioso en la Lucha Libre World Cup" (in Spanish). SuperLuchas Magazine. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  10. Boutwell, Josh (May 24, 2015). "AAA Lucha Libre World Cup Results - 5/24/15 (Live results)". Wrestleview. Retrieved May 24, 2015.
  11. Melendez, Sergio (May 25, 2015). "El Dream Team dedica la Copa Mundial a los aficionados" (in Spanish). Terra Networks. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  12. "Saca Dr. Wagner susto" (in Spanish). El Viga newspaper. May 24, 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  13. Valdés, Apolo (May 27, 2015). "México, Campeón de Lucha Libre". MedioTiempo (in Spanish). MSN. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  14. Boutwell, Josh (May 25, 2015). "5/24 Lucha World Cup: Special atmosphere". WrestleView. Retrieved May 29, 2015.
  15. Barry, Rob (May 25, 2015). "Lucha Libre World Cup (May 24) Review". Voices of Wrestling. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
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