CMLL World Trios Championship
Current Champions
Averno, Mephisto and Ephesto surprisingly captured the CMLL World Trios Championships from La Mascara, Mascara Dorada and Sombra at Arena Mexico on July 15, 2011. They are the 23rd champions.
History of Championship
15: Hector Garza, Tarzan Boy and Terrible won the belts after just a couple feuds of with the champions. There didn't seem to be any particular plans for this unit, a make shift one, and the belts may have only been defended once before the team quietly split. There never was an in-ring break up, but the team was divided between members of the Guerreros del Atlantida faction (Tarzan Boy) and Los Perros del Mal (Hector Garza, Terrible), and the two factions started feuding against each other in 2005. The championship was rarely mentioned from 2005 until the decision match to decide new champions.
Vacant (4): It was announced on the September 16, 2006 CMLL television show that a decision match would be held for the champion on September 29th, the CMLL Anniversary show.
16: Atlantis, Ultimo Guerrero and Tarzan Boy won a decision match over Perro Aguayo Jr., Hector Garza and Shocker when Shocker turned on his teammates. The Trios championships continued to be a battlefield between Perros del Mal and Guerreros del Atlantida.
17: Mr. Aguila, Perro Aguayo Jr. and Hector Garza, members of Perros del Mal, over thru the Guerreros for the championship on February 16, 2007. The team defended the championship once before it slipped into the background of individual feuds.
In February of 2008, Los Perros turned on Hector Garza when he protested Averno and Mephisto inclusion in the group. The trios championship situation was not addressed for three months past until a title tournament was announced after the May 23rd show.
18: Despite never having teamed previously, Hector Garza led young tecnicos La Mascara and Hijo del Fantasma thru the championship tournament, climaxing with an upset win over Blue Panther, Dos Caras Jr., and Garza's then tag team championship partner Mistico. It was a rare tecnico/tecnico final, seemingly setting up issues between Garza and Mistico and Garza's new role as a leader of a group of high flyers.
Neither idea seemed to gain much traction, and neither did this trio on it's first trip thru. The unit did not team up unless they were about to lose a non-title match or win a title defense. While it did give more attention to Mascara and Fantasma, they were still used lower on the cards and wouldn't naturally find chances to team with their leader. Just as this team won the championship without teaming previously, they lost to a team who had not teamed up previously.
19: Continuing the pattern, Negro Casas, Ultimo Guerrero and Atlantis won the CMLL Trios Championship as a three top wrestlers who happened to be teaming together on that night, and not as previously established unit. In fact, Negro Casas was already in an established unit (Pesta Negra) and the other two were in a totally separate unit (Guerreros del Atlantida). Winning the trios championship fuzzied the distinction between those two groups and caused the Guerreros to lose members (Sangre Azteca & Olimpico) who were upset about being passed over for a non-member like Negro Casas.
What this team did not have in team strength, it did make up for thru having a genuine Mexico City feud for the championship. As part of the CMLL/TNA partnership, and spilling out of the events of the 2008 Gran Prix, a trio of TNA wrestlers challenges for the trios titles at the 75th Anniversary show. The champions held on, despite Ultimo Guerrero not getting revenge on rival Alex Shelley.
In a surprise, this trio lost the belts back to those who had beat them.
20: The tecnico trio of Hijo del Fantasma, La Mascara and Hector Garza were more successful in the their second reign. The team had a series of high profile Arena Mexico defenses, and turned back the Triada de Terror team three different times. Unlike the first time, where Fantasma and Mascara seemed to be random men pulled up from the midcard, the two younger wrestlers were moved up to a higher level when this title reign got rolling.
However, after September, the team wasn't much of a team. Hector Garza was more focused on a rivalry with No Limit. Once that got changed to No Limit versus Terrible & Texano Jr., Garza feuded with Ultimo Guerrero over the CMLL World Heavyweight Championship instead. While Fantasma and Mascara were still treated as bigger stars, this title went on the back burner for about a half year (not too unprecedented in CMLL or with these titles.)
In spring of 2010, Garza suddenly started becoming frustrated with his tecnico partners, betraying them to the rudos at times. At first, it seemed like Terrible, Texano and a partner to be decided later were about to win these titles, but that storyline got pushed off to the side during the Gran Alternativa tournament. Garza won the tournament, teaming with rudo Polvora, while his partners lost to Japanese duo Okumura & Taichi in an atomicos the same week as the final. The foreigners demanded a title shot, teaming with Tanahashi, due to arrive the next week. Mascara & Fantasma accepted, without Garza being aware. It was not a surprise when the title match went bad for the champions.
21: Taichi, Tanahashi and Okumura won the championships on May 7, with some help from Garza. It was the first time the Japanese trio had ever turned up, and it was Tanahashi's first match in CMLL in five years. The members of this team were the first non-Mexicans to win this championship.
Since Tanahashi was only scheduled to be in Mexico for a few weeks with no talk of return, and it was unlikely NJPW would bring Okumura over to help defend these championships, it was expected the new team would quickly lose the championships.
22: Sombra, Mascara Dorada, and La Mascara beat the Japanese team to take back the trios titles for CMLL. They did not appear to be the original planned unit; a team of Hector Garza, Texano Jr., Terrible was announced to get a non-title match versus the champions (won by the challengers to set up the title match the following week), but CMLL changed the lineup when plans for Garza also changed. This trio beat the champions the week after they won the titles in a non-title match, then beat the champions in a title match the following Friday.
Sombra, Dorada and Mascara were not a regular unit, similar to the previous tecnico champions. The trios had only teamed up one time, eight months prior to this title program. Mascara was part of the previous champion trio, Mascara Dorada has just returned from a trip to NJPW and Sombra was headed to NJPW a few weeks later. Sombra became a double champion, also holding the CMLL World Tag Team Championship with Volador Jr., while Mascara Dorada became a triple champion (Mexican National Trios Championship w/Metro & Stuka Jr. & CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship).
Champions Listing
Sources:
Gallery of Champions
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