AEW will debut in Mexico on June 18th. AEW Dynamite will air
live from Mexico City’s Arena Mexico, CMLL’s home building,
with a show entitled Grand Slam Mexico. It will be entirely
AEW-produced, though wrestlers from CMLL may be included.
The artwork for the show includes CMLL wrestlers Mistico,
Mascara Dorada, Komander, and Hologram as well as Will
Ospreay and Kenny Omega; CMLL fans have highly requested
both AEW wrestlers since this partnership began. Tickets
will go on sale on Ticketmaster on April 26.
No US promoter has ever taped a show in Arena Mexico prior.
CMLL does run private sold shows in the building for
sponsors, and has rented the building out to other
promotions in the past. The last outside promotion to run
Arena Mexico was Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon Mexico show in
2019. Prior to that, it would’ve been another Elite
promotion – Lucha Libre Elite – running the building in
2018.
Some of the AEW wrestlers will stay two days to appear in
the same building on June 20th, the CMLL FantasticaMania
Mexico show. That’s a Fan Leyenda-level (35 USD) show for
CMLL YouTube subscribers. NJPW wrestlers will be in for that
show, and some may appear on Dynamite as well. This is the
news Rocky Romero hinted about in his interview with Q101’s
Case Lowe last week.
The AEW Dynamite show in Arena Mexico will be the first time
a US promotion has aired live from Mexico since WWE in 2011.
(TNA has taped shows in Mexico City and Monterrey, and MLW
has taped in Tijuana.) The lack of televised events or a PPV
in Mexico has been a sore spot for Mexican fans of US
wrestling for years, and AEW will end up beating WWE to it.
AEW owner Tony Khan has talked about watching CMLL as a fan
and mentioned a goal of being able to run a show at Arena
Mexico. He’ll now achieve with this taping. CMLL and AEW
started working together in late 2023, and these shows are a
sign of how close they’ve come together in that short period
of time.
This AEW show is likely great news for WWE fans in Mexico.
WWE’s talk of doing a big live event in Mexico greatly
increased in the last few months, just about the time rumors
started to get out about this AEW/Arena Mexico possibility.
The history of WWE counter-programming means those fans will
finally get their long-awaited taping or PLE soon.
