El Santo
Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, best known by his ring name El Santo, was a Mexican luchador enmascarado, actor and folk hero. He is the most famous and iconic of the Mexican luchadores, and has been referred to as one of "the greatest legends in Mexican sports". His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in luchador films and comic books telling fictionalized stories of El Santo fighting for justice. He starred or co-starred in at least 53 movies between 1958 and 1982.
During his career, he mainly wrestled for Mexican promotion Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, where he won the Mexican National Light Heavyweight Championship, Mexican National Middleweight Championship, Mexican National Tag Team Championship with Rayo de Jalisco, Mexican National Welterweight Championship, NWA World Middleweight Championship and the NWA World Welterweight Championship. Early in his career, he worked under a variety of ring names and gimmicks both masked and unmasked, before becoming El Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata, in 1942.
Santo's brothers were also luchadores, with Black Guzmán being the first to make his debut and later Pantera Negra and Jimmy Guzmán joining them in wrestling as well. Only one of his eleven children followed him into professional wrestling, El Hijo del Santo making his debut in 1982. El Hijo del Santo's son made his debut as "Santo Jr." in 2016. Another grandson originally wrestled as "El Nieto del Santo", but now works under the name Axxel.
Santo is said to have popularized professional wrestling in Mexico just as Rikidōzan did in Japan. He was buried in his silver mask, in one of the biggest funerals in Mexico. Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre honors him with the annual Leyenda de Plata tournament. In 2018, WWE inducted Santo into their Hall of Fame's Legacy wing.
Childhood
The fifth of seven children, Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta was born on 23 September 1917, in Tulancingo, Hidalgo, son of Jesús Guzmán Campuzano and Josefina Huerta de Guzmán. Rodolfo's family came to Mexico City in the 1920s, where they settled in the Tepito neighborhood. He practiced baseball and American football, and then became interested in various styles of wrestling and grappling. He first studied Ju-Jitsu and then later competed in amateur wrestling. Rodolfo has a brother who entered the wrestling business as well, Miguel, who is known as Black Guzmán.Professional wrestling career
Early career
Accounts vary as to exactly when and where he first wrestled professionally, either in Arena Peralvillo Cozumel on 28 June 1934 or at Deportivo Islas in the Guerrero colony of Mexico City in 1935, but by the second half of the 1930s, he was established as a wrestler, using the names "Rudy Guzmán", "Hombre Rojo", "El Demonio Negro" and "Murciélago Enmascarado II". The last name was the same as that of El Murciélago Enmascarado, and after an appeal by Murciélago to the Mexican boxing and wrestling commission, the regulatory body ruled that Guzmán could not use the name. Ironically, given his enduring status as a cult hero, he exclusively wrestled as a rudo for the first formative decades of his career.El Santo
In the early 1940s, Guzmán married María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Montaño, a union that produced eleven children; including his youngest child Jorge, who also became a famous wrestler in his own right, El Hijo del Santo. In 1942, Guzmán's manager, Don Jesús Lomelí, was putting together a new team of wrestlers, all dressed in silver, and wanted him to be a part of it. Lomelí suggested three names, "El Santo", "El Diablo" or "El Angel", and Guzmán chose the first one due to the contrast with his rudo personality. On 26 July, aged 24, he wrestled at the Arena México for the first time as El Santo, although he later was known simply as "Santo". Under this new name he quickly found his style.On April 2, 1943, Santo headlined the debut show at the newly built Arena Coliseo in a Mexican National Middleweight Championship match against Tarzán Lopez. He lost the bout, but avenged himself by defeating Lopez in a Luchas de Apuestas at the EMLL 10th Anniversary Show and claiming his hair.
On November 19, 1944, Santo teamed for the first time with Gory Guerrero to form "La Pareja Atómica", a tandem that would go on to achieve legendary status & remain undefeated throughout their tenure together. On May 15, 1946, Santo won the NWA World Welterweight Championship in the final of an internationally-themed tournament, triggering a groundswell of fan support behind him as a symbol of national pride.
One of Santo's greatest matches was in 1952, when he fought a tag-team known as Los Hermanos Shadow. Santo beat and unmasked Black Shadow in the ring on November 7, 1952, which triggered Blue Demon's decision to become a técnico, as well as a legendary feud between Santo and Blue Demon that culminated in his defeat in a well-publicized series of matches in 1952 and again in 1953. Although they appeared together in a number of action/adventure films, and teamed together semi-regularly in matches from 1963 onwards, their rivalry never really ended in later years since Santo always remembered his defeat at Blue Demon's hands.
In 1957, a pay dispute with EMLL management lead to Santo leaving the company. His debut movie premiered the following year, with the notoriety Santo garnered from it allowing him great autonomy in his wrestling bookings. He returned to EMLL by 1961, and officially became a técnico himself in 1962 as part of an angle where his rudo teammates Los Espantos turned on him.
El Santo was known to never remove his mask, even in private company. When traveling on flights, he made sure to take a different flight than his crew to avoid having them see his face when he was required to remove his mask to get through customs.
Retirement
By the early 1980s, El Santo slowed down his in-ring activities leading up to his inevitable retirement. His farewell tour was announced for August and September 1982. The first of three events took place on 22 August 1982 at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. On that night, Santo teamed up with El Solitario to take on Villano III and Rokambole, in a match that naturally saw the legends win. After the match, Villano and Rokambole lifted Santo up on their shoulders as he received the adulation of the sold-out arena. The following Sunday, Santo appeared at Arena México, where he teamed up with Gran Hamada to defeat Villano I and Scorpio.Santo's last match took place on 12 September 1982, a week before his 65th birthday. In his last ever match, Santo teamed up with Gory Guerrero who came out of retirement to reform "La Pareja Atómica" as they teamed up with Huracán Ramírez and El Solitario. Their opponents included one of Santo's biggest rivals in Perro Aguayo, as well as El Signo, Negro Navarro and El Texano. True to the legend of Santo, he won his last match and retired as the hero he always portrayed in the ring and on the screen. His retirement tour was also used to introduce Santo's son Jorge as the next generation El Santo, as he was ringside at each show wearing the silver mask and being introduced as El Hijo del Santo.
Film career
In 1952, a superhero motion picture serial was made entitled The Man in the Silver Mask, which was supposed to star Santo, but he declined to appear in it, because he thought it would fail commercially. The film was made instead with well-known luchador El Médico Asesino in the lead role, wearing a white mask similar to Santo's silver one. A villain named "The Silver-Masked Man" was introduced into the plot at the last minute, thus the title of the film strangely became a reference to the villain, not the hero.In 1958, Fernando Osés, a wrestler and actor, invited Santo to work in movies, and although Santo was unwilling to give up his wrestling career, he accepted, planning to do both at the same time. Osés was planning on playing the hero in these two films, with Santo appearing as his costumed sidekick, "El Enmascarado". Osés and Enrique Zambrano wrote the scripts for the first two movies, Santo contra el cerebro del mal and Santo contra hombres infernales, both made in 1958, and directed by Joselito Rodríguez.
Filming was done in Cuba, and ended just the day before Fidel Castro entered Havana and declared the victory of the revolution. The films apparently could not find a distributor for several years. Santo's film career really took off in 1961 with his third movie Santo Contra los Zombies. Santo was given the starring role with this film, and was shown for the first time as a professional wrestler moonlighting as a superhero. When Santo's film career took off in 1961, the producers of the first two films slyly entered Santo's name into the titles and finally got them released.
Santo eventually wound up appearing in 53 luchador films in all. Because the films were produced quickly and cheaply, they relied on recycled plot structures and stereotypical characterization. The style of the movies was essentially the same throughout the series, with Santo as a superhero fighting supernatural creatures, evil scientists, various criminals, secret agents and so on. The tones were reminiscent of U.S. B-movies and TV shows, perhaps most similar to the old Republic Pictures serials of the 1940s. In Mexican cinemas, audience participation with the films was common.
His best-known movie outside of Mexico is also considered one of his best, 1962's Santo contra las mujeres vampiro, which was also featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. In this movie, the production values were better, and there was an attempt at creating more of a mythos and background for Santo, as the last of a long line of superheroes. It was an enormous success at the box office. Only four of the 53 Santo films were ever dubbed into English, the other 48 being only available in Spanish. The English-dubbed Mexican films of that time period were imported to the United States through the efforts of K. Gordon Murray who changed the name of Santo to "Samson" for some of his releases. Most of Murray's imported Mexi-films went directly to late-night American TV. Santo's most financially successful film was The Mummies of Guanajuato, which co-starred Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras.
The Santo film series inspired the production of similar series of movies starring other well-known luchadores such as Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, Superzan, and the Wrestling Women, among others. Santo even co-starred with Blue Demon and Máscaras in several of his movies. Blue Demon invited Santo to co-star with him and Máscaras in Los Campeones Justicieros, however, Santo was too busy making other films to participate.
By 1977, the masked wrestler film craze had practically died off, but Santo continued to appear in more films over the next few years. His last film was Fury of the Karate Experts, shot in Florida in 1982, the same year he retired from the ring.
Seventeen years after Santo's death, his real-life son played the lead role in a brand new Santo movie called Infraterrestre, which co-starred Mexican wrestler Blue Panther.