10 Most Prestigious Wrestling Tournaments Of All Time

6. The CMLL Universal Championship Tournament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_o_yoHUOSo The Campeonato Universal tournament in CMLL is a unique tournament, because the winner is awarded a title belt that they carry with them for the rest of the year, but is only defended at the next Universal Championship tournament. In other words, someone who wins this tournament gets to carry the equivalent of a World Championship for an entire year, symbolizing their victory in one of the most challenging tournaments in all of professional wrestling. Though the tournament is hosted by CMLL, wrestlers from other promotions have participated due to cross-promotional deals with CMLL. This is how non-CMLL wrestlers like Jushin Liger and Hiroshi Tanahashi have been able to take part in this tournament. This is an excellent way of building a Superstar into something bigger. If they win an annual tournament and carry the belt all year until it€™s defended at the subsequent year€™s event, that wrestler will have an entire year to be elevated as a much more credible athlete. Moreover, it puts the competition over as far more challenging, as the sixteen wrestlers who take part are presented as much hungrier and more dangerous. All of the winners of this tournament either became bigger stars after this tournament, like CMLL€™s La Sombra, or they cemented their legacies as lucha libre legends, which is what Liger, Tanahashi, and Ultimo Guerrero all did.