It’s secure to say Claudio Castagnoli was in a great mood after successfully defending the CMLL World Heavyweight Championship against Roderick Strong on “AEW Collision.” Just sooner or later later, CMLL released a video of the Death Riders enforcer announcing that he could be back in Arena Mexico this Friday, and was willing to place the CMLL World Heavyweight Title on the road against “a young luchador who thinks they’ve what it takes to take this away from me.”
Sooner or later later, CMLL found a luchador that is up for the challenge. On X early Monday afternoon, CMLL star Xelhua officially answered Castagnoli’s challenge, with CMLL confirming the match would happen this Friday. After cutting a promo mostly in Spanish, Xelhua had one final statement for Claudio in English.
“Claudio, I’m ready,” Xelhua said. “And this championship stays in Mexico.”
⌛🌎🇨🇭 🇲🇽
🔥 ¡Ya hay retador!El Gigante Cholulteca, Xelhua, levanta la mano y responde al reto abierto de Claudio Castagnoli para enfrentarse en un duelo por el Campeonato Mundial de Peso Completo del CMLL, este viernes 30 de enero en la Arena México.#CMLL #AEW pic.twitter.com/FTPnGzYWXg
— Lucha Libre CMLL (@CMLL_OFICIAL) January 26, 2026
Considered one of the vital technically sound luchadors on the planet despite being only 21 years old, Xelhua could be very familiar to AEW and Ring of Honor fans due to his battles against ROH Pure Champion Lee Moriarty. The 2 have wrestled 3 times because the end of July, with Xelhua, wrestling to a cut-off date draw of their first match before Moriarty defeated Xelhua at ROH Death Before Dishonor and last Saturday’s CMLL event in Arena Coliseo, retaining the title on each occasions.
Xelhua vs. Castagnoli might be the latter’s third defense of his CMLL World Heavyweight Championship reign, and will even function Xelhua’s first ever challenge for said championship, though he has previously challenged Atlantis Jr. and Guerrero Maya Jr. for the World Historic Light Heavyweight and Mexican National Middleweight Championships. Having come up short in those two matches, a win over Castagnoli would give Xelhua his first ever CMLL championship.