The Leyenda de Plata (2016) was professional wrestling tournament produced by the Mexican wrestling promotion Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLLl; Spanish "World Wrestling Council") that ran from July 15, 2016, over the course of two of CMLL's Friday night shows in Arena México with the finals on July 22, 2016. The annual Leyenda de Plata tournament is held in honor of lucha libre legend El Santo and is one of CMLL's most important annual tournaments. The tournament consists of a torneo cibernetico elimination match as the first round and the winner of that match would face the previous' year's winner in the finals. For the 2016 tournament CMLL it was originally announced that the 2015 tournament winner, Negro Casas, was part of the initial field, but later replaced him with Dragon Lee to keep the original format intact.
The torneo cibernetic competitors included: Bárbaro Cavernario, Dragon Lee, Guerrero Maya Jr., La Máscara, Mephisto, Místico, the Panther, Ripper, Titán, Tritón, Virus and Volador Jr.[1] During the final moments of the torneo cibernetico La Máscara applied the La Campana submission hold on Dragon Lee, when Lee's older brother Rush ran to the ring and attacked La Máscara to cause a disqualification. After the match, Dragon Lee challenged La Máscara to a Lucha de Apuestas match, but La Máscara did not accept the match at the time. After the challenge, La Máscara attacked Dragon Lee and stole Dragon Lee's mask. The following week La Máscara defeated Negro Casas after interference from Casas' corner man Tiger hit Casas instead.
The Leyenda de Plata was held annually until 2003, at which point El Santo's son, El Hijo del Santo left CMLL on bad terms. The tournament returned in 2004 and has been held on an almost annual basis since then.[2] The original format of the tournament was the Torneo cibernetico elimination match to qualify for a semi-final. The winner of the semi-final would face the winner of the previous year's tournament in the final. Since 2005 CMLL has held two cibernetico matches and the winner of each then meet in the semi-final. In 2011, the tournament was modified to eliminate the final stage as the previous winner, Místico, did not work for CMLL at that point in time[4] The 2016 edition of La Leyenda de Plata was the 14th overall tournament held by CMLL.[2]
The events featured a total of number of professional wrestling matches with different wrestlers involved in pre-existing scripted feuds, plots and storylines. Wrestlers were portrayed as either heels (referred to as rudos in Mexico, those that portray the "bad guys") or faces (técnicos in Mexico, the "good guy" characters) as they followed a series of tension-building events, which culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.[5]
^Madigan, Dan (2007). "El Santo". Mondo Lucha a Go Go: the bizarre& honorable world of wild Mexican wrestling. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 71–78. ISBN978-0-06-085583-3.
^Madigan, Dan (2007). ""Okay... what is Lucha Libre?"". Mondo Lucha a Go Go: the bizarre & honorable world of wild Mexican wrestling. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 31. ISBN978-0-06-085583-3. featuring clearly distinguished good guys and bad guys, or técnicos and rudos