Hijo del Santo is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
Santo’s career has been as important to Mexico as John Cena is to the United States and Hiroshi Tanahashi to Japan.
Santo is an all-time great in-ring wrestler, and his matches from the ’80s and ’90s still hold up as great today.
El Hijo del Santo has been an outstanding ticket seller at his peak.
Santo helped make younger wrestlers bigger stars at times during his career.
Santo will have his retirement match on Saturday. It’s the same day as Cena. It’s going to be in a giant stadium like Tanahashi’s. The difference is that very few people care about Santo’s retirement. Tanahashi and Cena have been cogs in companies, Santo has been a company unto himself, and that path has left him adrift at the end.
In case you do want to see the send-off, El Hijo del Santo’s retirement show takes place Saturday night. It should eventually surface in the subscriber-only section of Mas Lucha’s YouTube channel, as all of the taped shows in his year-plus retirement tour have gone. They’ve given no information on whether it’ll air live or go up later, and will likely wait until show time to do so. Also, this is not an article that’s going to take you through the best matches of Santo’s career; that’s equally worth doing, and there are better people to do it.
There are other mitigating details to the lesser acclaim for El Hijo del Santo’s retirement. Santo is much farther past his peak as a wrestler and a star than Cena or Tanahashi. Santo’s also had a longer retirement tour and has played some games with it. Santo had a Mexico City retirement show in April, claims he was planning to have one final show just outside the city limits, and then his partner promoters convinced him it was just easier to book a venue in Mexico City if he was going to be close anyway. No one beyond Santo was clambering for another retirement show in Mexico City after the dud of the April event. That turned into a half-full event where the promotion gave a lot of freebies, and those fans turned against the show. It left no appetite for another bite at the retirement apple. All of that is still part of the price Santo’s paying for going his own way.
El Hijo del Santo wasn’t always a guy going it alone. He started as a popular rookie in the promotion commonly known as UWA in the early 80s, and quickly took off as an in-ring worker. Santo picked up some extra work in EMLL at a time when both promotions were allowing their wrestlers to work for either group. EMLL started to take off in the late 80s. Santo left both groups to join the original class of AAA wrestlers in 1992. AAA took off, then nosedived, and Santo returned his suitcase to Arena Mexico in 1995. Santo made a fair number of jumps, but they were jumps that many wrestlers were making around the same time. This was not unusual behavior.
Hijo del Santo’s career was always bound to be unusual, given his famous father, who instilled a distinct mindset. The original El Santo clashed with EMLL ownership, being dismissed by the Lutteroths in 1957 after a pay dispute. Santo’s first movie premiered a year later and immediately succeeded, allowing him to work with promotions on his own terms. He learned to stand up for his worth and protect his name’s worth. Hijo del Santo continued to uphold these principles throughout his career, taking independent bookings while aligned with promotions, so he was never fully reliant on them. He maintained strict control of the Santo name. El Hijo del Santo’s brief WWE stint—part of the late 90s Super Astros program—ended when WWE required a standard agreement to market the character, and even that deal wasn’t enough for Santo to surrender his rights.
Santo’s priorities began to diverge from those of promoters in the early 2000s. Santo was still doing stints in CMLL, among the best work of his career. He’d pop in for months-long tours, and then go back to doing his independent work for a while.
Santo teamed with young Mistico to win a Gran Alternativa, which was vitally important in giving their new star top guy credibility. In 2006, Santo had a strong rivalry with El Hijo del Perro Aguayo in an echo of their father’s famous feuds. He beat Perro Jr. in a singles match on August 25 to wrap up Santo’s tour, with the idea that he’d be back again later on.
He has never wrestled in Arena Mexico again.
The following March, CMLL and Santo announced they were done with each other. CMLL head Paco Alonso said Santo requested an excessive amount of money compared to others at his level and was working disallowed shows with AAA wrestlers. El Hijo del Santo said he wanted what he was worth, and argued that CMLL should not be using his father’s name and identity in their Leyenda de Plata tournament. (SuperLuchas’ Ernesto Ocampo has more recently said this turned into a lawsuit between CMLL and Santo, though the details and outcome of that lawsuit are not public knowledge. CMLL has continued to use the Leyenda de Plata name.)
El Hijo del Santo worked an independent schedule for the next few years before surfacing in an unexpected place: AAA.
The 2009 TripleMania was built around a 5v5 cage match, with (face) Joaquin Roldan and (rudo) Dorian Roldan putting up control of the company. Santo was a one-off booking as a stunt. AAA paid Santo’s price, made sure he was the one who’d get his hand raised at the end of the match, and thought that was all there was to it. AAA had started releasing retail DVDs of its major events at that time, and the second in line was TripleMania. Santo sued AAA over it; he said he got paid for the live appearance but had never agreed to the DVD and had not been paid for it. That court case dragged on for years; I believe Santo eventually got a payoff. The part that endured from that case was Santo showing up at a hearing masked, and Marisela Pena asking the judge to force him to unmask in open court to prove he was actually the same man who was suing AAA. The judge eventually ruled the court could determine it was the real El Santo under the mask without unmasking, but that speaks to the level of dislike between the two sides. AAA has always been more willing to work with people they’ve had issues with if it makes business sense, but El Hijo del Santo became one person they’d vow never to work again.
Having burnt his bridges in both major Mexican promotions, El Hijo del Santo began running his own opposition group. He used the name “Todo x el Todo” for a losers-advance mask match tournament in 2007. The name comes from the original everyone versus everyone concept. He started regular events in 2011. The promotion had memorable moments (like reviving the Dr. Wagner and LA Park feud) and let Santo book whichever matches he preferred. Todo x el Todo was never hugely successful, but it did well enough. The Santo name always secured him work with other promoters. His independence meant he was only obligated to do the shows he wanted to do.
You’ll glimpse peak El Hijo del Santo in his retirement match Sunday, or in recent bouts on his drawn-out farewell tour. He still draws in 2,000 to 3,000-seat venues, like his final (maybe) European trip, but not in Mexico’s 10,000-seat arenas. As outstanding as Hijo del Santo has been in the ring, he’s mediocre as a promoter, booker, and executive. Todo x el Todo cards haven’t changed in a decade—retro lineups now more outdated. The newest additions, like Hijo del Fishman and Ciclon Ramirez, are minor independents chosen to serve Santo and earn a paycheck. No new ideas, and Santo Jr. is the only attempt at a new star. Santo Jr. hasn’t impressed, and only small venues book him. (Those small promotions are required to also book the Hijo del Fishman types.) The retirement shows were set to flop as soon as lineups and prices were revealed, showing an out-of-touch approach.
John Cena and Hiroshi Tanahashi had a lot to do with why John Cena and Hiroshi Tanahashi were all-time wrestlers. They were also surrounded by promotional ecosystems that came up with new ideas with him, introduced him to new opponents, and kept the pressure on him to change with the times.
El Hijo del Santo’s independent stance gave him very little of that structure. Wrestlers don’t have to be tied to a promotion to keep growing, but Santo didn’t replace that promotional system with much of anything – just a group of people around to say yes to him doing what he already wanted to do, and to fend off anyone who might not go along with his goals. There’s a lot of value in being independent. When you don’t challenge yourself, and you’re no longer challenged by others, you get to that point where you wither away without really noticing it.
This retirement tour was supposed to showcase El Hijo del Santo one more time. It has illustrated how far he has slipped. He can get press in every town, do interviews with the famous news makers, and then still only draw a third of a house in hot wrestling cities. Santo blamed the downfall on the original promoters of the retirement tour. The turnouts have been even worse as they’ve run with a new group. Santo’s retirement show in Guadalajara this past week was canceled due to a lack of ticket sales. The Mexico City finale this Saturday is no better, and I think it’s only happening because canceling what’s billed as Santo’s final show would be too embarrassing to everyone.
El Hijo del Santo’s final show in Mexico City should be a celebration of one of the all-time greats. It may still be that, only in El Hijo del Santo’s head. It’s not going to be the big deal it should be because his previous last-ever show in Mexico City means few trust this will actually be his finale. It’s not going to be the big deal it should be because Santo’s falling out with Mexico’s major promoters has left him on the fringes of the wrestling scene for a long time, instead of being celebrated as a critical part of it. It’s not going to be a big deal because Santo’s been wrestling in his comfortable cocoon for a very long time, almost a working retirement.
Santo’s career merits a full arena chanting his name as he takes his final bow, and his path will likely lead him to a sadder spectacle.
