El Hijo del Santo

[NotJayTabb]

The only positions in my list that are locked in are my top 6, and Santo is 5th. I've heard people talk about Santo as a gateway to lucha, and I think that's fair. He was my entry point, and I think it's for all the reasons you listed above: the aura, the smoothness of his high-flying, how great he is on the mat, but most importantly,because I just love watching him.

[Tim Cooke]

He will be my highest luchador. I think I have him at 7 or 8 right now.

[Matt D]

He's in my top 20. I have 3-4 above him, depending on how you classify Rey.

[Jetlag]

I'll probably have him as my #1. The guy couples a tremendous variety of excellent matches over a nearly 30 year time period with a legendary aura. He has a formula, yes, but it's a winning formula in my eyes. The great performances in random high school gyms and british church halls make up for the holes in his career.

[Childs]

I have him No. 24 and third among pure luchadores.

[Matt D]

He is my first heart over brains candidate.

[Grimmas]

Top 20 easily. He's behind Casas, maybe Satanico.

[Dylan Waco]

His stock is going up with me over the last few weeks as I've watched several of his brawls and god damn is he great in that setting. I'd always sort of known that, but I'd never really paid attention to it because so much of what I think about when I think of him is his stock offensive spots and how genius he is with them. But the genius extends to the brawls where he plug his big dives, or building to the camel clutch, or whatever into a truly crazy display of unrestrained violence. Maybe he has an unfair advantage because of the color of his gear, but watching him a blood soaked brawl always seems to connect with me on a visceral level.

 

There have been some disappointments - I thought the first fall of the first Dr. Cerebro match I watched was terribly uninteresting, but by and large watching him go to war with people is awesome. I hadn't really considered him as someone with a shot of being my top luchador, but I'd say he's at least played his way into the periphery of that discussion.

[Matt D]

What resonates with me the most is when he's selling a beating on the floor, maybe between falls, or just in the midst of a beatdown, and he's leaning on the apron. Sometimes a kid will come up and interact with him. I've seen it a few times now and it's just transcendent somehow, like he's channeling a higher level of wrestling reality that no one else can reach.

[S.L.L.]

In thinking about Santito, he's really one of the more interesting cases of in-ring talent crossing with out-of-ring context to create the best possible outcome. I mean, that's gonna be true of every candidate to some degree, but he really hit the jackpot: an elite level worker, who's also the son of the most beloved wrestler who ever lived, and is tasked with carrying on his mask and his legend into the next generation. As great as he is, it's hard to imagine you'd be as compelled by him if his personal stakes didn't set things so high...but, of course, if all he had was his history, you'd just have Blue Demon Jr.

 

El Hijo del Santo might be my favorite wrestler ever, and I kinda want to make an argument for him at #1, though I think that might be pushing it. That said, top five doesn't feel outlandish to me.

[goodhelmet]

The only positions in my list that are locked in are my top 6, and Santo is 5th. I've heard people talk about Santo as a gateway to lucha, and I think that's fair. He was my entry point, and I think it's for all the reasons you listed above: the aura, the smoothness of his high-flying, how great he is on the mat, but most importantly,because I just love watching him.

 

I also have him at #5 and my #1 luchador. Really, the only reason he isn't higher is because I prefer other styles of wrestling over lucha, mainly Memphis and All Japan.

[Timbo Slice]

Deciding between placing him or Casas above each other is so mind-numbingly difficult that I might actually have to flip a coin. And then figure out how high I can put the winner, because I seriously can't figure out how I would put either of them below 8, yet here I am having to do so.

[goodhelmet]

Hell, I had Santo higher simply because he signed a mask for me. That was the tiebreaker.

[Timbo Slice]

Yeah, that's a way better tiebreaker.

[Matt D]

A couple of weeks out from the end of this and I just don't see the argument for Santo being better than either Casas or Satanico. I'm not even sure if I understand it (Will's autograph notwithstanding).

 

One thing I'd be curious would be if anyone who's relatively new to lucha, over the last few years, even if a lot has been seen, would put Santo other either of them. Santo's an awesome middle ground between grace and righteous violence. He portrays the image of fighting out of a Gory special, for instance, that struggle, better than anyone in wrestling history; it's a triumphant moment when he sits up and with very few wrestlers can you use the word "triumphant" with in a non-ironic way. I think he can garner sympathy extremely well, and do a lot of other things competently. He's in my top twenty, but I don't see him as close to either Satanico or Casas. I guess he's slightly more primal while they are both definitely more rounded, but it's not like they're not primal as well. Satanico is the best bad guy in wrestling history, just spewing over the top malevolent glee and Casas is a god damn trickster god. If Satanico is Mephistopheles, then Casas is either Puck or Old Stick depending on what era of his career you're looking at, and both of them are just awesome when the crowd is behind them.

 

I don't think I'm going to have Santo over Rey, even. He's more dynamic but 2000s Rey has that same sort of connection with the crowd with so much more creativity in match layout and we have the footage to see that on a weekly basis.

 

Like I said, still top 20, but sometimes I wonder if you sort of had to be there with Santo.

[Jimmy Redman]

As the noobiest of the noobs, I have Santo neck and neck with Casas and both substantially higher than Satanico.

 

That's more of an indictment on me than Satanico, because I like Satanico, I just haven't seen much 80s lucha and lucha brawls are tough sells for me. I enjoy him, I just don't see the transcendence (yet).

 

But Santo, on the other hand, I do find transcendent, and immediate.

[Matt D]

Do you have him over Rey?

[Jimmy Redman]

No. But Rey is a Top 5 guy, and no luchador is touching that for me when the entire style was unintelligible to me 6 months ago. It's not a fair contest.

 

The fact that I'm considering a luchador for even my Top 30 say, is a huge testament to the impressions Santo and Casas have made on me, because I would not have bet on my doing so at one point.

[Jetlag]

I could see putting Santo over Casas and Satanico based on longevity and variety. His advantage is that we have much of his early period on tape and it's great. Casas' problem is that he doesn't have many awesome bloodbaths. Also, his big resurgence begins pretty late around 2011, before that he is mostly holding together trios matches and stuck carrying Mistico. Up until that point Santo probably has the better decade, but I just like him doing his thing so much. Satanico looks good-great-phenomenal in every match he's in, but doesn't have a lot of must watch classics after 1990.

[Matt D]

I suppose I could see a strictly "Great Match" argument, but I think the 90s matches we've had pop up with Casas really help his case there. I do think Casas' need for a "resurgence" in the 00s is overstated, especially in a direct comparison with Santo during the same period.

[Timbo Slice]

I'm definitely in that "Great Match" area with Santo, especially given I just saw the two matches considered quite possibly his best recently as a reminder of what I thought of him when I first watched lucha. I love Casas and he also is going to rank high on my list, but at the same time, and my personal tiebreaker on a lot of these close calls was done this way, if I had a connection with someone and it resonated with me more than the other guy, that's who went above the other. Casas really does have a great match case, though, and the work he's doing into his 50s is in the Lawler/Tenryu/Funk range, and might be better than all of them. I'll have to come up with more sound reasoning when I explain the pick, so I hope I can do that in a way that conveys my feelings more than just "I liked him more than the other guy," but in the end, it might be the simplest and most pertinent answer.

[Timbo Slice]

HA. Holy crap. I just realized the reasoning for who I picked #1 overall directly contradicts the argument I just made about Santo and Casas. Looks like I have to rethink this whole placement thing.

[Microstatistics]

There was a time when ranking Santo over Casas would have been inconceivable to me. But after the 2019 and 2020 GME projects, Santo and Satanico seem to be in a league of their own when it comes to the luchadors.

Santo is one of the definitive output guys. He was slightly formulaic and maybe lacked the touch of someone who emphasizes micro-level details. But he was a great mat worker, a great brawler, a great high-flyer, a great bomb-thrower, worked well in multiple settings, and produced an assortment of great matches over a 25+ year span. Top 10 lock.

[Quentin]

I’ve gone through a lot of Santito stuff the last few weeks and him over Casas is becoming a very possible thing for me as well. The dude just floors me every single time in a way only a handful of guys do. Absolutely magical pro wrestler, no other way I can describe him.

[elliott]

I first saw Hijo del Santo probably 23 years ago and I still get excited to watch him.