5 curious facts about El Santo

A couple of weeks ago it marked the 72th anniversary of the debut of one of the greatest luchadores of all time, El Santo. We can't forget the fact that Rodolfo Guzman Huerta debuted in lucha libre back in 1934, but the characther that made him famous appeared for the frist time in mexican arenas on July 26 1942. 

To celebrate the occasion today I bring you, 5 curious facts about El Santo.

His Rudo Side

After wrestling under the names of El Hombre Rojo y El Murcielago II, an opportunity  to have a new character was presented to Rodolfo Guzman Huerta (El Santo's real name). The head of the booking department in Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre back in the fortys, Jesús Lomelí, gave him the chance to pick between two names, El Ángel or El Santo, but under the condition that he had to wrestle as a rudo. Mr. Lomelí wanted to see a religious character being hated by the audience.

When it came to perform as a rudo, well, he didn't disappoint Mister Lomelí. In his first match as El Santo, he won people's hatred, behaving as an experienced rudo and mainly because he beat the crap out of one of his opponents that night. He lost that match via disqualification when he punched the referee who was trying to stop El Santo's bashing. On next day newspapers El Santo was considered by most journalists as a wild and hypocrite luchador.

Teaming up with Blue Demon

One of the classic rivalries and the most important in lucha libre history is the on El Santo had with Blue Demon, their feud was so intense that they couldn't see each other. There's a non ending discussion in which of these two luchadores was the best. But there's something that not too many people talk about, when they teamed up, and I'm not talking about fighting together in the movies, I mean as a tag team in real life.

It would be strange to see these Santo and Blue Demon on the same side, and if we consider the fact that the rivalry had been going since 1952, it was pretty much impossible. After reading way too many stories about lucha libre, there's one phrase I like to use to describe lucha libre: Nothing is impossible. In 1963, El Santo and Blue Demon were on the same tag team for the first time in a match.

Complementing this fact, they wouldn't fight together in movies until 1966 in the movie Blue Demon contra El Poder Satanico. In that film, El Santo had a brief but significant cameo.

His voices in movies

Óscar Morelli

If you've ever watched more than one film with El Santo, you might noticed that his voice "magically" changes from film to film. It's no secret what I'm about to tell you, but the voice of El Santo in all of movies were dubbed by another actor.

There were various causes for the dubbing, his son El Hijo del Santo, gave 2 reasons in his weekly editorial for a local newspaper: The main one, the dubbing was made so people wouldn't recognize him in the streets by his voice; the second one, because El Santo didn't like his diction and the pitch of his voice.

There were a lot of actor that dubbed the voice of El Santo: Bruno Rey, Óscar Morelli, Carlos Ancira, Víctor Alcocer (who also dubbed Blue Demon's voice), Narciso Busquets, Alberto Pedret, Carlos Rotzinger, Guillermo Portillo Acosta, David Reynoso y Claudio Brook.

His life after retirement

One would think that after retiring from lucha libre El Santo seeked for a more peaceful life, I mean he could've continue with his acting career, or teaching lucha libre to the future generation of luchadores. But no, apparently El Santo wasn't used to more relaxing activities, because after he left wrestling he started to make escapism acts at el teatro blanquita in Mexico City, he did this since his retirement in 1982 until his passing in 1984.

His trophies

Throughout his 40 years as a professional wrestler, El Santo won a good amount of trophies: 6 championships, the Mexican titles for the welterweight, middleweight, the junior heavyweight and the tag team, plus the NWA world titles for the welter and the middleweight.

In bet matches he was undefeated. Counting all the mask vs mask or mask vs hair he was in, El Santo won 16 masks and shaved the head of 21 of his opponents. There were only 3 luchadores that he beat more than once in this type of match: Bobby Bonales who was beaten twice a mask versus hair, El Gladiador, who first lost his mask with El Santo, and later his hair, the same thing happened to Bobby Lee.

This is all for today, I'll see you next week

Francisco Arreola

@fcoarreola