{"id":222961,"date":"2026-09-27T12:23:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T17:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=222961"},"modified":"2026-09-27T12:23:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T17:23:40","slug":"cmll-hits-misses-barbers-assessment-of-the-93rd-anniversary-show-with-bandido-vs-soberano-jr-titan-vs-kommander-andrade-vs-volador-claudio-castagnoli-vs-hechicero-vs-zach-sabre-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/09\/27\/cmll-hits-misses-barbers-assessment-of-the-93rd-anniversary-show-with-bandido-vs-soberano-jr-titan-vs-kommander-andrade-vs-volador-claudio-castagnoli-vs-hechicero-vs-zach-sabre-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"CMLL HITS &#038; MISSES: Barber&#8217;s assessment of the 93rd Anniversary Show with Bandido vs. Soberano Jr., Titan vs. Kommander, Andrade vs. Volador, Claudio Castagnoli vs. Hechicero vs. Zach Sabre Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1514260636\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>CMLL&#8217;S 93rd Anniversario is in the books. It was pretty strong outing from the world\u2019s oldest wrestling promotion featuring two very good matches and a main event that went pretty much the only way it could. There was one baffling, simply befuddling booking decision which we\u2019ll discuss. Let\u2019s unpack the good and bad from the biggest event of CMLL\u2019s year.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>HITS<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Bandido vs. Soberano Jr.:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Easily the Match of the Night. When calling the CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston match at AEW Full Gear 2021, Jim Ross at one point exclaimed, \u201cWhat a goddamn firefight!\u201d That call came to my mind when watching Bandido and Soberano Jr. fight. These two absolutely went at each other. This wasn\u2019t about a dazzling display that lucha can be. This was about two guys who wanted to beat the hell out of each other. Soberano tearing the top of Bandido\u2019s mask off and Bandido reciprocating by ripping Soberano\u2019s mask to the point where he needed a replacement was evidence of how personal this one was. I thought Bandido had him beat with the 21Plex, but Soberano Jr. kicked out. The Soberano Driver on the top turnbuckle looked devastating and that was followed by a Soberano Driver in the middle of the ring which looked just as painful. Now let\u2019s hope CMLL finds a way to capitalize on this win.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrade El Idolo vs. Volador Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This feud dates back to Andrade\u2019s time in CMLL as La Sombra. Volador Jr even donned his mask for this match. These worked so well together. Everything was crisp and fluid. Volador Jr. diving from the top of the stairs to the stage onto Andrade was the spot of the night. Andrade winning was no surprise, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s Volador Jr. at all. Yes, he has one of CMLL\u2019s 32 titles (no that\u2019s not an exaggeration), but he\u2019s on the tail end of his career and Andrade isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>T\u00ectan vs. Komander<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Unlike the Bandido-Soberano match, T\u00ectan and Komander did put on a dazzling display of lucha. Both of these guys were flying around the ring, routinely defying gravity. Komander\u2019s Space Man Rope Walk remains one of the most ridiculous moves in wrestling. I was hoping that Komander would win the CMLL World Welterweight Title. He\u2019s so talented yet he routinely loses and he did just that here. At least way T\u00ectan bent him in half for the submission looked excruciating. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve mentioned this in any other CMLL column, but T\u00ectan has some the best entrance music in wrestling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>M\u00ecstico vs. Averno (Mask vs. Hair)<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-578402265\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>M\u00ecstico &amp; Averno winning the four-way tag and main eventing Anniversario was the only sensible option. M\u00ecstico is the biggest star in the company. He had to be in the main event of the biggest show of the year. The match itself was fairly paint-by-numbers, but it gets a soft hit for how over M\u00ecstico is and how much Averno enjoys being a heel. M\u00ecstico is an underrated seller, in my opinion. He sold his ass off in this match before making his big comeback and getting the win with La Mistica. Averno got his head shaved (he somehow looks more evil when bald), but immediately got his heat back by stealing the masks of all three members of El Sky Team<\/p>\n<p><strong>Los Hermanos Chavez vs. Los Hermanos Calvera vs. El Sky Team vs. Los Villianos<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A soft hit for a fun opener that showed off a lot of CMLL\u2019s talent. The most surprising aspect of this match was the outcome. Los Hermanos Chavez already broke the record for most tag title defenses. There\u2019s really nothing left for them to do with the belts. Having them retain the titles then was a questionable decision, at best. It would\u2019ve made way more sense to put over Los Hermanos Calavera or even El Sky Team and then let Angel de Oro split off from his brother move up the card.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Production<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It felt like CMLL upped their production game for this show. They had some cool new camera shots with a drone cam, updated graphics that looked punchier, short videos from the heads of NJPW, Stardom, RevPro, MLW, and AEW wishing them happy anniversary, and of course a special performance this time by Sonora Santanera. CMLL always does a good job making these big shows feel special. Having videos sent in by the heads of each of their partner promotions was a nice touch. It makes it feel like a cohesive wrestling world.<\/p>\n<p><em>ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Check out the latest episode of &#8220;Worse or Better&#8221; with Stephanie Chase and Josh White, part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreaker.com\/episode\/worse-or-better-the-finishing-touch-josh-white-chris-lansdell-discuss-finishing-moves-over-the-last-four-decades-of-wrestling--75284563\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to stream (or search \u201cpwtorch\u201d on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Worse or Better (The Finishing Touch) - Josh White &amp; Chris Lansdell discuss finishing moves over the last four decades of wrestling\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=75284563&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>MISSES<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Persephone vs. Tessa Blanchard vs. Starlight Kid vs. Mina Shirakawa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All four of the women in this match are good to great workers. That wasn\u2019t the issue. The issue was that Starlight Kid and Mina Shirakawa had no reason to be in this match. There was a lot chatter about how many talent from partner promotions were on this card and it really stuck out here. This match was really about Tessa and Persephone. The most interesting moments came when those two were squaring off. Starlight Kid and Mina Shirakawa just felt like superfluous extras. As if that wasn\u2019t egregious enough, the finish was basically a non-finish. Persephone used the old Eddie Guerrero trick making the referee believe Tessa had struck her with the title belt which led to a DQ. I was fully prepared for Tessa to win the title by pinning Mina Shirakawa which would\u2019ve been a cop out in its own right. To do that DQ finish on the biggest show of the year was just inexplicable. I don\u2019t like Tessa Blanchard but there\u2019s no arguing she\u2019s over. Just get it over with and put the title on her already.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1810676698\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><strong>Hechicero vs. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Zack Sabre Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not a bad match from an in-ring standpoint, but like the previous match this one also suffered from too many participants. Hechicero against either of these guys in a one-on-one match would\u2019ve been preferable. More importantly, though, it feels like this was a missed opportunity for a CMLL talent like Xelhua to have a big match on a big stage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Barbaro Cavernario &amp; Dragon Rojo Jr vs. Zankodan Jr. &amp; Star Jr. vs. \u00daltimo Guerrero &amp; Templario vs. M\u00ecstico &amp; Averno<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I actually think CMLL did a pretty good job of building up three out of the four of these feuds. Unfortunately, the match was just kind of there. Everyone worked hard, but there just wasn\u2019t much in the way of audience investment. Perhaps the crowd realized that M\u00ecstico vs. Averno was inevitable.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PWTorch Live Post-show (9\/26) - AEW All Out with Greg Parks &amp; Joshua White\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/luARiv-Chyc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1346194778\"><div id=\"pwtor-3942979390\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>CMLL&#8217;S 93rd Anniversario is in the books. It was pretty strong outing from the world\u2019s oldest wrestling promotion featuring two very good matches and a main event that went pretty much the only way it <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2026\/09\/27\/cmll-hits-misses-barbers-assessment-of-the-93rd-anniversary-show-with-bandido-vs-soberano-jr-titan-vs-kommander-andrade-vs-volador-claudio-castagnoli-vs-hechicero-vs-zach-sabre-jr\/\" title=\"CMLL HITS &#038; MISSES: Barber&#8217;s assessment of the 93rd Anniversary Show with Bandido vs. Soberano Jr., Titan vs. Kommander, Andrade vs. Volador, Claudio Castagnoli vs. Hechicero vs. Zach Sabre Jr.\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-27-at-12.22.08-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222962,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222961\/revisions\/222962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}