Week 1: El Santo
Santo is without a doubt the biggest star in the history of professional wrestling in Mexico. Seen as a national treasure and hero, he wrestled for over 40 years, and scarcely lost a feud in that period. People often say that he was the Hulk Hogan of lucha libre, but he was more than that. We may call Hogan the most popular wrestler of all time, and we acknowledge his mainstream success, but he will not close a city's streets down when he dies, and he will not ever have statues put up in his honour. Put it this way: Mexicans votd him 8th greatest Mexican of all time, to put that into perspective the American and British equivalent polls had Elvis Presley and John Lennon in the same positions.
Vital Statistics
Trained by: Black Guzman
Allegiance: Rudo 1936-62 Tecnico 62-82
Other names: Rudy Guzmán, Hombre Rojo, Murciélago Enmascarado II, El Demonio Negro
Legacy: 12 sons, the youngest of whom, El Hijo del Santo, wrestles. 25 grandsons, Axxel el Nieto del Santo
Finishers: La de a Caballo (camel clutch), Tope de cristo (flying somersault headbutt)
Weight: 210lb
Height: 5' 9"
Born: 23 September 1917
Died: 5 February 1984
Career History
A star is born
Santo was born the 5th child of 7 on 23 September 1917. His actual name was Rodolfo Guzman Huerta. Santo's family moved to Mexico City when he was still a child, and 4 of the Guzman brothers became wrestlers. Jimmy Guzman had limited success, as did Pantera Negro (black panther) whose only claim to fame was a brief feud with Canek, before he died in the ring later. The most successful, outside of Santo himself was Black Guzman, who won the NWA Middleweight title, amongst others.
Inspired by his brothers and uninspired by his job in a stockings factory, Santo learned jiu-jitsu and greco-roman wrestling with a view to becoming a wrestler like them. Eventually, he debuted in EMLL as a rudo, or heel. It should be noted that due to the fact that rudos are brawlers and tecnicos, the faces, are high flyers turn are not very common in Mexico.
He debuted as Rudy Guzman, and then quickly became Hombre Rojo ("red man"), and wrestled unmasked throughout this period. Frustrated at his lack of a push, he left EMLL and went to work for another recent EMLL departure, Jesus Lomeli.
Originally, Lomelli pushed him as El Murciélago Enmascarado II (the 2nd masked bat), but the original El Murciélago Enmascarado got the box y lucha comission to force him to stop. His heat was lost overnight as he was given a makeshift gimmick of El Demonio Negro, as seen below, but it never really took off.
Finally, in 1942 he and Lobelli settled on the name "El Santo", as they felt calling a heel "The Saint" would be a fabulously ironic thing. Santo debuted at Arena Mexico on 28 July 1942 in a battle royal where the last two participants had a two out of three falls match. Santo and Ciclon Veloz faced off in the final two. Santo took one fall, lost the next and was disqualified for the third fall when he hit the referee following the referee's insistance that he stopped as he beat up Veloz to a pulp.
The next week, as the crowd expected Veloz to get his revenge, Santo destroyed him, and thus he become one of the most oer rudos immediately. Santo continued to be built as a rudo over the rest of the year, and made headlines in December following a brutal superlibre match (no rules) with Lobo Negro and by giving Dientes Hernandez 8 low blows in a row.
Firmly established, he won the Mexican National Welterweight Championship in February and then the Middleweight title the following month, ironically against Murciélago Velázquez, the original El Murciélago Enmascarado. Later that month he had his first lucha de apuesta, a hair vs mask match, with Murciélago Velázquez, in a winning effort.
Growing popularity and Blue Demon
Santo lost his middleweight title, and then his welterweight title in the next year, but managed to win another 2 huge hair vs mask matches against Bobby Bonales, and then another against Jack O'Brien before creating one of the most famous tag teams in lucha history with Gory Guerrero, La Pareja Atomica, The atomic pair. They were unstoppable, think mega powers, and dominated for the best part of six years. During this time, Santo won his first NWA title, the Welterweight one, beating Bulgarian Pete Pancov in the final. He went on to defend the title for a year, before losing it to Jack O'Brien.
O'Brien defended the title in a tournament, and Guerrero and Santo faced off for the first time. Guerrero won, but Santo continued to support him as he won the title.
Santo briefly went to wrestle unmasked in Texas, but left soon afterwards and returned to find that his and Guerrero's thunder had been stolen by Black Shadow and Blue Demon, two "brothers". Guerrero and Santo beat them, and Black Shadow attempted to avenge the defeat by feuding with Santo, resulting in his first mask vs mas match, which Santo won, revealing Black Shadow's identity.
Blue Demon was hugely upset by this and turned face, leading to the biggest feud in the history of Lucha Libre. Demon eventually won the feud, but the feud is what solidified the position of lucha lbre in Mexico. TV cameras were filming it for the first time, and Santo found himself as a superhero with comics written about him, as did Blue Demon. And as can be seen here.
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I don't have the means to upload any of the Santo vs Blue Demon matches, so you'll have to make do with this, which is taken from one of the legendarily shit films that both men starred in.
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Fantastic Stuff.
Turning Face
Following his feud with Demon, Santo moved on to bigger and better things. He was now drawing audiences of millions and his films were making him into a star. He won the NWA Middleweight Championship and held it for almost three full years. He was taking masks on a regular basis, and the crowd began to cheer for him as he was potrayed as a superhero, and more importantly, because he was regularly beating the foreign wrestlers that came to Mexico.
Perhaps unsuprisingly, 10 years of becoming increasingly popular led to him becoming a tecnico in 1962. Despite having wrestled as a brawler his entire career, his first match as a tecnico was so good ro an aerial point of view that he received a standing ovation from the crowd. He even began to team with Blue Demon, both in the ring, and in shit films.
He continued as a face for the next few years and this is a selection of his matches from that period. Some are taken from movies, so they contain face shots of women in an artificial audience.
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Winding Down
After these few years in the sun, Santo started to wind down his career. He only wrestled tag matches and won the tag titles with a young Rayo de Jalisco and formed the most popular trio of all time with Mil Mascaras and El Solitario. That is basically the same as Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan and Lou Thesz forming a tag team, to put that into some perspective.
Throughout the 1970s he had a few singles matches also, including taking his final mask: that of El Remolino. He continued to wind down and in 1982, at the ripe old age of 65, he had a three match retirement tour, culminating in a DQ win in an 8 man tag match, which wasn't to befitting of his career, although Gory came out of his own retirement to participate.
El Santo lived for two more years, and finally revealed his face on national telelvision two weeks before he died, in quite a controversial move as seen here.
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Upon his death, he chose to keep his mask on to be buried. His funeral attracted 10,000 to the streets of Mexico City and closed the streets for several hours. Upon his death, several statues were erected in his honour around the country, such as this one.
Lucha de Apuestas
Hairs taken
Murciélago Velázquez
Bobby Bonales x 2
Jack O'Brien
Enrique Llanes
Cavernario Galindo
El Gladiador
Raúl Torres
Gorilita Flores
Judas Colombiano
Gory Casanova
Arturo Chávez
Chico Casaola
Ruben Juarez
Espanto II
Benny Galant
René Guajardo
Jorge Allende
Perro Aguayo
Bobby Lee
Masks Won
Black Shadow
Monje Loco
Halcón Negro
El Gladiador
Golden Terror
Le Cebra
La Arana
La Momia
Cara Cortada
Dragon Rojo
Dr. X
Espanto I
Dick Angelo
Bobby Lee
El Remolino
Also, he and Dr X took the masks of Los Infernales I & II
Titles
NWA World Middleweight Champion
2 Time NWA World Welterweight Champion
Mexican National Light Heavyweight Champion
4 Time Mexican National Middleweight Champion
2 Time Mexican National Tag Team Champion with Rayo de Jalisco
2 Time Mexican National Welterweight Championship
