AEW's Romero tees up Grand Slam Mexico on TSN2

Months of hard work will come to fruition on Wednesday night when All Elite Wrestling presents Grand Slam Mexico from Arena Mexico in Mexico City.

The hallowed grounds are the home base of AEW’s sister promotion, the venerable Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), the world’s oldest active professional wrestling federation that dates back to 1933. 

For Rocky Romero, it’s the right occasion to bring AEW south of the border. 

“It’s going to be something that’s pretty historic because it’s going to be the first time that a U.S. professional wrestling company has had a live TV show filmed and produced in Mexico City and at, of all places, the cathedral of lucha libre, Arena Mexico, which is one of the most historic wrestling venues in the world,” Romero told TSN.ca. “And I think right now in the wrestling world, there seems to be a lot of focus on Mexico itself and lucha libre itself, so I think right now is the perfect opportunity and the perfect time to bring AEW to Mexico.” 

You can catch a special two-and-a-half-hour AEW Grand Slam Mexico on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT on TSN2, the TSN App, and TSN.ca.

Romero isn’t just an on-air performer for AEW. A member of the Don Callis Family and one half of Roppongi Vice alongside Trent Beretta, wrestling is just one of many hats worn by the 42-year-old veteran from Los Angeles.

In many ways, Romero (real name John Rivera) is the linchpin that holds AEW’s partnerships with CMLL and New Japan Pro-Wrestling together, serving as an intermediary among the three companies. With AEW, Romero is a vice president of show and talent coordination, liaising between talent and management and was crucial in helping to forge the relationships among the companies. 

“It’s a mix, but it just kinda never stops,” Romero said of his day-to-day work. “All day, it’s answering emails and text messages and going back and forth with New Japan or going back and forth with CMLL or going back and forth with AEW. All day long, it’s something – a lot of problem-solving, a lot of connecting people to the right people so they can speak over certain things. We’ve got Forbidden Door coming up in August in the UK. So, it’s stuff like that, making sure the right people are talking, and dealing with talent.

“When New Japan is doing shows in America, helping to organize that, as well. So, my days are pretty busy – and then also trying to find the time to work on myself, as well, and get in the gym and do the things I need to do to be able to perform. Every day is tough, and my schedule is a little crazy because I do travel to Japan a lot, I do travel to Mexico a lot because all these things are moving and wrestling never ends. It’s not seasonal. Every day is an experience.”

Romero says Wednesday night’s show is a culmination of considerable planning. 

“I think we’ve been working on it for about six months, at least, with heavy preparation the last four and a half months – coming down to the arena multiple times,” Romero said. “The arena has been around for a long time. It’s quite old, so [we were] checking to see if it was just even possible, production-wise, to do the calibre of production that AEW is used to and be able to get it out into the world. [There was] a ton of prep work with that, as well as trying to make sure we bring the best card possible to the fans here in Mexico.”

Grand Slam Mexico comes at a time when the CMLL product is red-hot. Its signature Friday night shows at Arena Mexico have been selling out regularly and are filled with loud and passionate fans, as well as many tourists looking for an authentic lucha libre experience. 

“I think it’s the consistency – the consistency of the product and they’ve got a really, really great roster,” Romero said of CMLL’s current popularity. “Obviously, it helps to have one of the biggest wrestlers to ever come through Arena Mexico in Mistico. He’s a massive draw. And it’s one family to have owned the company for the 92 years.”

Romero credits current owner, Salvador Lutteroth III, the grandson of CMLL’s founder, for being open to change without disrespecting the kind of tradition on which the company was founded. 

“I think he has a really great vision and he’s open to a lot of things because he didn’t really start in the wrestling world,” Romero said of Lutteroth. “He was promoting the boxing side. So, I think the stuff he learned from the boxing side and him being kind of more open to new ideas has really helped get them on this run that they’ve been on. In my conversations with him in the last couple of weeks, I think [he said] they’re on a 30-or-40-week run where they’ve had 8,000 or more every Friday night, which is really, really impressive. I’m not sure if they’ve done that in quite a while, since maybe the ‘80s or ‘90s.” 

While there is a universality to wrestling fans the world over, Romero believes the cultural element that connects Mexican fans to lucha libre is unlike anything anywhere else around the globe. 

“I think it’s just deeper culturally,” Romero said. “You’ll walk around the city and you’ll see lucha libre masks being sold on the street. You’ll see lucha libre murals. You’ll see commercials featuring a luchador character. It’s just so embedded in the culture. You grow up and you probably don’t even think about it because it’s just a part of your everyday life. Lucha libre in Mexico is just the norm. It’s very rare that I would talk to a person who had never been to the arena or had never experienced lucha libre at some point in their life, which I think is completely different than in the other countries, whether it be the U.S. or Canada or Japan or the UK or wherever it might be.” 

It's this type of environment that has made the AEW roster eager to get down for Wednesday night’s show. 

“I would say that everybody I’ve talked to over the last few months since it got announced, everybody really wanted to be a part of it,” Romero said. “It’s kind of one of those times where I wish we were doing Collision, as well, or had a pay-per-view just to get more people on the show to have the experience they might have at Arena Mexico. There’s really no better experience, honestly. It’s really just a very unique venue and the crowd is just incredible and passionate and loud. I think everybody on our roster, whether it be wrestler or referee or commentator, wanted to be a part of this show because they knew how big and important it is.”

A product of NJPW’s Los Angeles Dojo and trained by Antonio Inoki himself, Romero’s personal history in Mexico dates back over two decades, first arriving in CMLL in the early 2000s.

After a somewhat acrimonious departure from CMLL in 2008 and a stint in bitter rival promotion, AAA, Romero returned to CMLL in late 2022 and has been a regular since. Romero found himself embroiled in a bitter feud with one of the company’s signature technicos (babyfaces) in Volador Jr. and the two had a series of well-received, high-profile matches with Romero catching on as a top rudo (heel).

Considering the circumstances, returning to CMLL wasn’t something Romero saw in the cards for himself. 

“I thought that door was closed completely, which I think is what made the story with Volador so much more special,” Romero said. “We had a ton of history when I first came to Mexico in 2003. The big storyline was my team, Los Havana Brothers, against Volador’s team. That was just a big part of – kinda the springboard of my career – what got me going. To be able to have that history and then come back to Arena Mexico where I never thought I would ever come back, I kind of just played that into the storyline because it was real. I had many conversations with CMLL over the years and they still held a grudge for me leaving and there was a lot of politics behind it.” 

The feud with Volador was a special one for Romero. 

“I’ve been able to do some really great business coming out of it – introducing AEW to CMLL and, obviously, CMLL and New Japan have had a great partnership over the years, but to get more involved in that,” Romero said. “And then, like I said, being able to do things that we wouldn’t normally be able to do at Arena Mexico because it’s so traditional, kinda bringing some of that U.S. influence to get people talking. When you’re trying to get the casual fan or the hardcore fan to really pay attention, I thought that feud was super influential in getting where we are today in bringing AEW to Arena Mexico.” 

Over the past several months, a number of CMLL talents have appeared on AEW TV including the likes of Mistico, Hechicero, Templario and Atlantis Jr. Asked who he’d like to see more of, Romero had a couple of names in mind. 

“We’ve seen a little bit of him in AEW in Mascara Dorada, but he’s just somebody who’s unique and very special and super young,” Romero said. “I think he’s like 22 years old or something. He’s got a bright, bright future. Another guy is Titan. Titan has done a lot of great work over in Japan in being a part of Los Ingobernables. But I don’t think the U.S. fans have seen much of him, and I think he’s a guy who’s got a great story and who’s just a really impressive wrestler. I’d like to see him come over to the States a bit more.” 

After Grand Slam Mexico, AEW heads into its biggest show of the year in All In set for Globe Life Stadium in Arlington, Texas on July 11, followed by what has become one of the company’s signature events in the fourth edition of Forbidden Door from London’s O2 Arena on Aug. 24. The latter show will once again feature the best that all of AEW, NJPW and CMLL have to offer in one ring. 

Romero feels like the concept has become a trendsetter in the industry with World Wrestling Entertainment’s recent purchase of AAA. 

“I think watching what the competition is doing is obviously very important,” Romero said. “And I feel like the competition has taken a lot of the good that we’ve done over the last few years in creating partnerships and being able to work on them. You can see that in WWE working with TNA and now with AAA. I feel like they’ve seen the playbook that we’ve done, and we put together, so now I think the next evolution of that is it’s always important to increase communication between the partners and strengthening the partnerships, of course.” 

With Grand Slam Australia last February and Grand Slam Mexico, Romero hopes that the groundwork has been set for even more dates across the globe. 

“I think [our partnerships] leave a lot of room open to do more international shows like this,” Romero said. “Coming to Arena Mexico was a big step. Obviously, I’d love to see AEW come over to Japan [for its own show] at some point. Because AEW has this huge influence worldwide, being able to use that toward the partnerships so that people will know who these wrestlers are and what the product is, what New Japan is, what CMLL is – I think that’s an important thing for me.”