History Wrestling / ElSanto

Stand back and think about this for a second. How insanely awesome would it be if Comicbook/{{Superman}}, Comicbook/{{Batman}}, and Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} freed themselves from the page, and started flying around/brooding around/slicing around your neighborhood? Now imagine you're a six year old kid in Mexico City in 1954, and your favorite thing in the world is El Santo Comics. It doesn't take long to discover that Santo is a real person. But unlike when you find out that your daddy is Santa Claus, it turns out that Santo is actually buff, actually fights people, and has both an actual superhero costume and a semi-secret identity? All that crazy stuff El Santo does in the comics, like choking out the Loch Ness Monster and hiding out in a secret moonbase, suddenly becomes an order of magnitude more believable. Even the brighter kids can't outright dismiss the more mundane stories, like Santo foiling bank robberies or inventing gadgets, perhaps even fighting sharks. For the youngsters of the '50s and '60s, El Santo was an Actual Real Life Superhero, regardless of his technical lack of superpowers.

* ''3 Dev Adam'' (''Film/ThreeBigMen'', 1973): Turkish film featuring extremely unauthorized and out-of-character portrayals of El Santo, ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, and Franchise/{{Spider Man}}.

* ActionHorror: Quite a few of his movies would pit him against [[MonsterMash the classic movie monsters]], whom he would overcome through the power of wrestling.

''Who the hell is this guy?'' Why the frick is this Santo dude picking a fight with every mythological beast, AncientConspiracy, and cult icon within arm's reach? Is he recognized as a saint by the Vatican? And is The Blue Demon friend [[DramaticPause ...]] [[ScareChord OR FOE?!?!?]]

Born Rodolfo Guzman Huerta (September 23, 1917 – February 5, 1984), he started out normal, or whatever passed for normal in the hard-knock world of Mexican professional wrestling in the 1940s. After starting out as ''[[{{Heel}} rudo]]'', he gained popularity, [[HeelFaceTurn turned into]] ''[[{{Face}} técnico]]'', and by the 50s was basically the biggest name in Lucha Libre. It is at about this point that El Santo evolves from mere Wrestling Legend to a cult figure and folk hero.

Stand back and think about this for a second. How insanely awesome would it be if Comicbook/{{Superman}}, Comicbook/{{Batman}}, and Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} freed themselves from the page, and started flying around/brooding around/slicing around your neighborhood? Now imagine you're a six year old kid in Mexico City in 1954, and your favorite thing in the world is El Santo Comics. It doesn't take long to discover that Santo is a real person. But unlike when you find out that your daddy is Santa Claus, it turns out that Santo is actually buff, actually fights people, and has both an actual superhero costume and a semi-secret identity? All that crazy stuff El Santo does in the comics, like choking out the Loch Ness Monster and hiding out in a secret moonbase, suddenly becomes an order of magnitude more believable. Even the brighter kids can't outright dismiss the more mundane stories, like Santo foiling bank robberies or inventing gadgets, perhaps even fighting sharks. For the youngsters of the 50s and 60s, El Santo was an Actual Real Life Superhero, regardless of his technical lack of superpowers.

** Primarily Blue Demon and Black Shadow, until Santo unmasked Shadow, causing them to pull a HeelFaceTurn.

** Creator/GuillermoDelToro pays {{homage}} to The Saint in his book series (and the TV adaptation thereof) Literature/TheStrain with The Silver Angel, a Saint-like luchadore/action star who withdrew into anonymity after a crippling knee injury ended his career. Decades later, the vampire apocalypse offers a second chance for a RetiredBadass to reclaim his mask, and live up to his legend.

The movies also featured Santo's WorthyOpponent Blue Demon, who in true wrestling fashion would [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor switch from ally to enemy and back]] on a fairly regular basis. Take a gander at Wiki/TheOtherWiki for the full filmography.

These days, few people actually believe that El Santo applied a scorpion leg lock to Count Dracula, but [[ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof no one can prove he didn't]], and so the legend of the Wrestling Saint cannot be destroyed. From Guadalajara to Gunma Prefecture, his story lives on.

** [[AscendedExtra Less directly]], Santo's stund double Black Man would become the biggest draw in Mexico alongside Kung Fu and Kato Kung Lee, as though Santo's feud with Los Misioneros de la Muerte had concluded, they were still around, still hated and tercias matches were still the most popular in Mexico. Los Tres Fantasticos were just what LLI needed when Santo departed.

* ''Film/SantoEnElTesoroDeDracula'' (Santo in Dracula's Treasure, 1968) aka ''El Vampiro y el Sexo'' (The Vampire and the Sex, the "adult" version of the film, [[MissingEpisode unreleased until 2011]]).

** Mil Máscaras and Huracán Ramirez (The man who invented the ''Huracánrana'') were created for movies when El Santo wasn't available and [[{{Defictionalization}} then both turned into luchadores]] by EMLL.

** [[AscendedExtra Less directly]], Santo's StuntDouble Black Man would become the biggest draw in Mexico alongside Kung Fu and Kato Kung Lee, as though Santo's feud with Los Misioneros de la Muerte had concluded, they were still around, still hated and tercias matches were still the most popular in Mexico. Los Tres Fantasticos were just what LLI needed when Santo departed.

Born Rodolfo Guzman Huerta (September 23, 1917 – February 5, 1984), he started out normal, or whatever passed for normal in the hard-knock world of Mexican professional wrestling in the 1940s. After starting out as a heel ("rudo" in Spanish), he gained popularity, [[HeelFaceTurn became a face ("tecnico" in Spanish)]], and by the 50s was basically the biggest name in Lucha Libre. It is at about this point that El Santo evolves from mere Wrestling Legend to a cult figure and folk hero.

!!Tropes
* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Was to Lucha Libre what Wrestling/{{Rikidozan}} had been for ''puroresu'' in Japan and Wrestling/LouThesz had been for pro wrestling in America.
* ArchEnemy

* CoolMask: So much so that his unofficial title was “El Enmascarado de Plata” (The Man in The Silver Mask).

** Mil Máscaras was created for a movie when El Santo wasn't available and [[{{Defictionalization}} then turned into a luchador]] by EMLL.

* FinishingMove: Tope de Cristo (Front-flip diving headbutt), La de a caballo (Camel clutch)

* LegacyCharacter: A recurring element in El Santo's "lore" is that his mask is some sort of ancient legacy passed down for millennia of Mexican generations and Santo is just the latest incarnation. Following suit, his son El Hijio Del Santo took over the mask after him, and ''his'' son is training at Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH to take over after him as El Nieto Del Santo (he eventually took the name El Santo Jr). There was also an unrelated female wrestler who went by La Novia Del Santo (The Bride Of El Santo, known as Irma González without the mask) who used the persona with Santo's blessing, and a male homosexual wrestler with the same name, who did ''not'' have his approval.

* ObviousStuntDouble: Santo obviously had no need for stunt doubles during the fight scenes, but every scene El Santo is unmasked during his filmography involves someone standing in for El Santo (as a [[CrazyPrepared extra precaution]] to protect his identity), even when he's shown from the back, and this is often obvious due Santo's distinctive body build.

* WrestlingFamily: Santo was the patriarch and had 10 children and ''25'' grandchildren, of whom El Hijo Del Santo, El Nieto Del Santo, and Axxel are wrestlers.

Legends are invincible, but despite rumors to the contrary, Santo was indeed human. After nearly 50 years in the ring, El Santo's age finally caught up to him. Following a farewell tour against a who's who of Lucha Libre, the masked man retired in 1982 at the ripe old age of 64. In January 1984 on a nationally televised talk show, Santo unmasked for the first and only time in public, shocking his legions of adoring fans. It is widely hypothesized that the luchador knew his time on Earth was about to run out, because a little more than a week after the television incident, Heaven got its Saint back. El Santo was [[BecomingTheMask buried wearing his iconic silver mask]]. Nowadays, his son competes in a similar mask, going by the name [[MeaningfulName "El Hijo del Santo"]]--[[LegacyCharacter The Son of The Saint]], as well as El Hijo's own son who is training as El Nieto Del Santo. Another grandson, going by the name of Axxel, who is the son of Santo's daughter and thus has not been able to use the El Nieto name, tours the Mexican circuit.

* LegacyCharacter: His son El Hijio Del Santo took over the mask after him, and his son is training at Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH to take over after him as El Nieto Del Santo (he eventually took the name El Santo Jr). There was also an unrelated female wrestler who went by La Novia Del Santo (The Bride Of El Santo, known as Irma González without the mask) who used the persona with Santo's blessing, and a male homosexual wrestler with the same name, who did ''not'' have his approval.

** Los Misioneros de la Muerte (Negro Navarro, El Signo and El Texano) in UWA. Incidentally, founding member Negro Navarro was a [[AscendedFanboy fanboy]] of Black Shadow, who had become Santo's ally by that point.

* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Was to Lucha Libre what Wrestling/{{Rikidozan}} had been for ''puoreso'' in Japan and Wrestling/LouThesz had been for pro wrestling in America.

Throughout his entire career, [[BigGood Santo was also a hero to the people]], giving back to the community [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming through charity and giving public support to many causes in favor of Mexico's poor]]. This made his wrestling name take on a more literal meaning to many of his fans, and some people in Mexico actually hold the belief that Santo is the saint that the Vatican will never canonize, but a saint just the same.

** His son was in the audience during his retirement tour, wearing a Silver Mask and was identified as Hijo Del Santo. Santo initially did not approve of his son's wrestling career, so he had a different gimmick prior to that point.

* FinishingMove: Tope de Cristo (diving headbutt), the Boston Crab

* LegacyCharacter: His son El Hijio Del Santo took over the mask after him, and his son is training at Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH to take over after him as El Nieto Del Santo. There was also an unrelated female wrestler who went by La Novia Del Santo (The Bride Of El Santo, known as Irma González without the mask) who used the persona with Santo's blessing, and a male homosexual wrestler with the same name, who did ''not'' have his approval.

The movies also featured Santo's WorthyOpponent Blue Demon, who in true wrestling fashion would [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor switch from ally to enemy and back]] on a fairly regular basis. Take a gander at Wiki/TheOtherWiki for the full filmography, as well as [[http://rotten.com/library/culture/santo/ the Rotten Library's great "Santo" article]].

Born Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, he started out normal, or whatever passed for normal in the hard-knock world of Mexican professional wrestling in the 1940s. After starting out as a heel ("rudo" in Spanish), he gained popularity, [[HeelFaceTurn became a face ("tecnico" in Spanish)]], and by the 50s was basically the biggest name in Lucha Libre. It is at about this point that El Santo evolves from mere Wrestling Legend to a cult figure and folk hero.