(the 2021 Tapatia award voting is closing in a few days, vote now)
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the lucha libre landscape. The number of shows shrank nearly 70%, with lucha libre barely existing and going underground after March. This annual post about how many matches people wrestled will have a lot smaller numbers than usual as a result.
There were many particular data issues due to the set of circumstances in 2020. Most of these will carry into 2021.
- I am unable to capture all events which take place in Mexico in any year; I can only find them if there’s some sort of promotion online. The special challenge of 2020 meant there were many shows purposefully not widely advertised in order to evade government detection. It’s unknown how many shows there were or how that compares to the normal amount of shows missed.
- CMLL numbers are a mess. The amount of events is inflated three or four times compared to what took place. The matches are incomplete. Events listed in 2021 clearly took place in 2020, or different months than listed in 2020. CMLL ran all day tapings with no fans, and later gave no indication of when matches were taped when. I’ve chosen to list matches on-air date instead. It is likely possible to figure out which marathon day each match was part of based on factors like ringside worker’s clothing and announcers present, but it would be an extra amount of work to figure out which marathon day is which. Social media may be key. I’ve decided this is not worth my time to figure out.
- Many other shows are listed under their Air Date instead of their actual date for similar issues.
- AAA records are the most complete, but 2020 fall AutoLuchas shows are still airing and some unannounced substations will be found.
- I’ve tried to mark matches as canceled (no match) on shows which did not take place, but that’s not complete. There are always shows which are advertised which do not take place, though 2020 likely set the record.
You can see the complete win/loss records and other data on this Google Sheet.
Shows for each year, over the last ten. (Number in parenthesis indicate the change since I ran these numbers a year ago – ‘new’ shows discovered or duplicates removed.)
Year: Shows
2011: 2717 (+2)
2012: 2901 (+13)
2013: 2859 (+52)
2014: 5588 (+10)
2015: 6420 (+4)
2016: 7111 (+8)
2017: 6104 (+6)
2018: 6345 (+12)
2019: 6927 (+47)
2020: 2157
I wasn’t going nuts adding lineups until 2014, and still most of those years have more recorded events than this year. I started this database in 2006; I’d have to go back to 2005 (all after the fact additions) to find a lower total
Events Actually Added In During The Year (No Matter What Year They Happened)
2015: 11553
2016: 9785
2017: 8642
2018: 9687
2019: 7705
2020: 5926
Punching in all of those old 60s/70s results gave me something to do and taught me a lot, but that’s a slower process. Definitely slower than the newspapers. (I could always use new ideas on archives to search.)
Most Matches
2008: Ultimo Guerrero (228)
2009: La Parka Jr. (211)
2010: Mistico (204)
2011: Último Guerrero & La Mascara (188)
2012: Último Guerrero (189)
2013: Último Guerrero (205)
2014: Atlantis (215)
2015: Atlantis (207)
2016: Atlantis (217)
2017: Último Guerrero & Psycho Clown (204)
2018: Último Guerrero (205)
2019: Caristico (223)
2020: Joe Lider (67)
There’s nothing more appropriate for 2020 than Joe Lider wrestling the most matches. A dangerous wrestler for dangerous times. He’s just high profile enough that people would actually advertise him, and not attached to any promotion that’d dissuade him from working for safety’s sake. Lider going back to DTU, who tried as hard as any indie to run regularly, added a few more matches.
wrestlers with more than 60 matches:
67 Joe Lider
66 Caristico
65 Fresero Jr.
63 Hijo del Espectro Jr.
61 Diosa Quetzal
61 Ultimo Guerrero
60 Baby Xtreme
These are all low enough numbers that a little more digging for cancelations would likely change the order. Or counting matches that didn’t air until 2021.
A subcategory: the wrestlers with the biggest difference between their 2019 and 2020 totals
157 Caristico (223 in last year to 66 this year)
152 Psycho Clown (207 to 55)
149 Místico (181 to 32)
148 Atlantis (148 to 0)
147 Valiente (194 to 48)
134 Volador Jr. (185 to 51)
131 Hijo del Vikingo (131 to 37)
128 Último Guerrero (189 to 61)
128 Soberano Jr. (179 to 51)
119 Cuatrero (169 to 50)
Most Wins
2008: Blue Panther (97)
2009: Mistico (110)
2010: Mistico (128)
2011: Último Guerrero (90)
2012: Atlantis (93)
2013: La Mascara (102)
2014: Atlantis (99)
2015: Volador Jr. (113)
2016: Volador Jr. (120)
2017: Volador Jr. (120)
2018: Caristico (115)
2019: Caristico (126)
2020: Caristico (37)
The flip side to Joe Lider working a lot is results rarely turn up from those places. We’re still missing results from AutoLucha shows at this point. Big Ovett (23) has more recorded wins than anyone working for AAA. Arez got to 16 mostly outside of AAA. Psycho Clown took 15 and did take a lot of outside dates.
Most Losses
2008: Averno (84)
2009: Negro Casas (86)
2010: Negro Casas (75)
2011: La Mascara (72)
2012: Último Guerrero (79)
2013: Último Guerrero (84)
2014: Último Guerrero (82)
2015: Último Guerrero (80)
2016: Último Guerrero (91)
2017: Último Guerrero (92)
2018: Último Guerrero (99)
2019: Mephisto (91)
2020: Stuka (29)
It’s been nearly a decade since a CMLL tecnico was at the top of the list. Ángel de Oro, both a tecnico and a rudo, was second at 28.
Best Win % (with at least 10 known results)
2008: Psycho Clown & Zombie Clown (100%)
2009: Psycho Circus (100%)
2010: Tondar (GDL) (100%)
2011: Mini Monster Clown (90%)
2012: Rayo de Oro (Guatemala) (97%)
2013: Tinieblas Jr. (90%)
2014: William Rock/Pequeno Violencia (92%)
2015: Súper Muñeco (93%)
2016: Huracán Ramírez (85%)
2017: Huracán Ramírez (90%)
2018: Tinieblas Jr. (91%)
2019: Microman (87%)
2020: Muerte Extrema (90%)
Muerte Extrema mostly inhabits the halls of Arena Lucha Time, where I’ve not been consistently tracking results. He hasn’t been there since Sepembter, as best I can tell, but won a lot early on.
I cut it down further to 50 results last year. That doesn’t work well this year: only Caristico, Ultimo Guerrero, Forastero, Angel de Oro, and Negro Casas reached 50 decisions in 2020.
Worst loss % (with at least 10 known results)
2008: Carrona (0%)
2009: Espectrito (0%)
2010: Metailk II (GDL) (11%)
2011: Akron (13%)
2012: Mini Talisman (8%)
2013: Estrella De Fuego (5%)
2014: Psicosis I/Nicho el Millionario (0%)
2015: Lady Shani (5%)
2016: Nahual (Morelos) (10.53%)
2017: Pitbull I (Jalisco) & Flayer Boy (9%)
2018: Rey Muerte (Guerrero) (0%)
2019: Mije (0%)
2020: La Guerrera (CMLL) (0%)
La Guerrera is definitely the lowest woman in CMLL’s totem pole. CMLL’s mostly done singles and pairs matches since the restart and leaned heavily towards giving the veterans wins; it’s unsurprising she didn’t find a way to a win. She has a good chance this weekend: there’s a Silueta & La Guerrera vs Stephanie Vaquer & La Seductora that someone’s got to win.
There’s a lot of usual CMLL stats – which day of the week did people work? which of the main arenas? – which doesn’t work in 2020.
States WIth at Least 100 Events
370 Estado de México
258 Distrito Federal
162 Jalisco
156 Veracruz
148 Coahuila
111 Tamaulipas
There were 18 states with 100 events this year, compared to eight this year. Mexico City (49%) and Chiapas (40%) were the only two states who didn’t decline more than 50%. Quintana Roo declined 84%.