Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, 2001 Main Event

Last Friday CMLL had its first important show of the year, Homenaje a Dos Leyendas (Homage for two legends), with a not so shocking result, but that is not the point. Because of this event, today I have for you (like I did last week with Rey de Reyes) some curious data about it.

Homenaje a Dos Leyendas started with the idea to tribute CMLL founder, Salvador Lutheroth, what I didn’t know, is that is held on March so it can match Lutheroth’s birthday (March 21th).

Originally there was only an homage to Salvador Lutheroth and had for name Homenaje a Salvador Lutheroth. But, since 1999 the name of the event was changed and a luchador was included as part of the tribute: Homenaje a Dos Leyendas: Salvador Lutheroth y El Santo. In the 2000 and 2001 editions, they added the tag line Juicio Final (Final Judgement).

When El Hijo del Santo left CMLL in 2004, El Santo was left out of the event’s name and began what today we can call a tradition, along with Salvador Lutheroth a classic luchador would be picked to be part of the tribute, the first one after El Santo, was El Perro Aguayo for the 2005 event.

Something I’ve noticed about Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, is that most of its main events (at least since the beginning of this century) have been more interesting than most of the headlining matches from CMLL’s anniversary show which is the most important show of the year for this company. I mean, what match do you remember the most? Atlantis vs Villano III in a mask vs mask in 2000 Homenaje a Dos Leyendas, or the cage match with 14 luchadores from the 77th anniversary show? Al tough since 2011, Homenaje a Dos Leyendas has reached the anniversary shows quality, and I don’t say this in a good way.

As I said there have been very good bouts in this show, like the one I have for you today, where El Perro Aguayo faced Universo 2000 in a hair vs mask match as the main event of that March night in 2001. Curious fact, El Perro Aguayo announced his retirement from lucha libre a few years earlier while he was working for AAA, short time later, he returned to lucha libre and worked for CMLL a couple more years, in fact this is Perro Aguayo’s second retirement fight.

Something that left me a bit freaked out about this match, was to see el Tigre Hispano as a heel referee in CMLL, I can’t remember them having this type of referee, not even these days when they have El Tirantes working for them.

Anyway, there’s nothing left to say, so I give you El Perro Aguayo against Universo 2000. See you next week.

Francisco Arreola

@fcoarreola