#granmarkusjr

Video & Part 2

Who’s who?

Rayo de Jalisco Jr. is son of classic luchador Rayo de Jalisco who's up there with Lucha Libre legends as far as his stature in the culture goes. The famous trademark mask is arguably one of the top 5 most iconic masks in Mexico. Rayo de Jalisco meaning Lightning Bolt from Jalisco, the signature white streak being lightning and both Sr and Jr being from the Jalisco area of Mexico.   

The original Rayo was NWA World Middleweight Championship(x3) and Mexican National Tag Team Championship(x2) with other famed old school luchador El Santo, who Rayo starred in several Luchador films with.  

Rayo Jr. followed his father's footsteps, but was a heavyweight. Capturing CMLL’s Heavyweight belt(x2), Mexican National Heavyweight belt(x3) and NWA’s Light Heavyweight belt(x1). He was also tag team champs once with another high stature luchador Atlantis. Most of Rayo Jr.’s success came in the late 80′s and early 90′s. Though this wouldn’t be his last CMLL Anniversary main event. His last one would come 8 years later in a 4-way Lucha de Apuestas/betting match.

Gran Markus Jr. is not son of classic luchador Gran Markus. Instead from 1977 to 1987 Gran Markus Jr was instead known as Tony Benetto. During this first decade of his career Tony even captured the Mexican National Tag Team Championship with none other than Rayo de Jalisco Jr. along with the Mexican National Heavyweight Championship.  

In 1987 Gran Markus Jr. decided the best step for his career was to become a masked character. Where at first he was in storyline the son of Gran Markus, though a few years into his run he feuded with Gran Markus where it was revealed that he wasn’t the son. Gran Markus and Jr had a betting match where Gran Markus(who was unmasked by this point) put his hair up in order to win the white mask off the imposter Jr. in which Jr. won to retain the mask for several more years. 

Gran Markus Jr got the Mexican National Championship for the 2nd time(1st as Jr.), which he would lose in 1990 to Rayo Jr., so the two have a storied history going into this match one that spans 2 different gimmicks for Gran Markus Jr. 

Gran Markus Jr. may most famously be remembered for this match or his involvement in a reboot of the classic Lucha Libre stable/team La Ola Blanca ("the White Wave"), featuring himself, Dr. Wagner Jr. and El Hijo del Gladiador. The original group was a tag team of Dr. Wagner and Angel Blanco. As the team name probably gives away Gran Markus Jr.’s mask is white. 

How was the match?

Good, but a little weak for the CMLL Anniversary Main Event. The match starts pretty slow with mostly technical mat based wrestling, but once the first fall happens things pick up in the 2nd and 3rd round. 

It is interesting to see Rayo in the ring, but if people are being honest Gran Markus rarely felt like a main eventer, especially one worthy of the main event of an Anniversary show. So here he doesn’t really feel like a huge threat to the more established Rayo Jr. 

The one big moment from Gran during this match would probably be the first fall which is where my highlights start. It was a decent elbow drop, though not super crisp it still lands well and looks intimidating because of Gran Markus’ stout form and larger size.

This match is the pretty basic smaller/technical guy vs the more stout heavy rudo. They play the roles well, but it’s hardly the greatest version of that story. It also has a little bit of a controversial finish, which would be fine on a weekly show, but seems out of place for the main event of your big yearly show. 

This would be the last time CMLL had a title match headline one of their CMLL Anniversary shows. You could put an asterisk on it because it was the main event of night 1, but I’d count it. Since both cards are considered the CMLL Anniversary shows.

This is one of the few shows where CMLL had multiple nights/cards for the Anniversary show likely to combat Triplemania which was AAA’s big yearly show, which from 1994-1997 was a 3 card event. AAA of course kicking off in the early 90′s as a secondary brand to combat CMLL, much like TNA/WCW were launched as competitors for WWE. 

I’d probably give this around a 3-3.5 stars or a solid 7/10. It’s a fine title match, but would seem more fitting on a weekly show main event than as the main event of the yearly show.