<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the beginning, there was El Santo, and El Santo was good. John Wayne combined with how-good-New Yorkers-say-Jeter-was good. Born in 1917 as Rudolfo Guzman Huerta in the city of Hidalgo, he entered the world of lucha libre wrestling in the 20s under a variety of names, until finally lacing up the silver mask and becoming El Santo several years into his career. Though together with two other heavyweights, Blue Demon and Mil M\u00E1scaras, he forms a trio of cherished wrestlers from the era nicknamed the \u201CBig Three,\u201D his own legacy is monolithic.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the years that followed his exit from the sport, his once-pristine reputation has been dragged into a bitter family feud over how best to preserve the sacred name of El Santo. This ain\u2019t the McMahon family\u2014the bitter fighting has taken place away from the cameras and has revolved around the idea that only one member of El Santo\u2019s dynasty had a say in who could claim to be a member of the family.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There was a time when El Santo\u2014Spanish for The Saint\u2014was seen everywhere in Mexico. He defined an entire genre of luchador flicks, campy B-movie horror films where lucha libre stars fought demons and vampires that could be vanquished with wrestling moves. In one film, called &lt;em&gt;The Mummies of Guanajuato&lt;/em&gt;, Mil M\u00E1scaras and Blue Demon are kidnapped by a mummy named Satan and rescued in the end by El Santo. In the final scene, the masked wrestler pulls up a gold sports car and cape, toting flamethrowing pistols that reduce Satan and his mummy gang to ash. It was the highest-grossing movie of El Santo\u2019s career.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;\u201CHow did the thrilling legend of the legendary character known as Santo, the Silver-Masked One, begin?\u201D asked a comic book about El Santo that was created in 1952. \u201CNo one could ever answer these questions. He appeared one day from parts unknown.\u201D In the first pages of the debut issue, the reader sees a poor man brooding in the darkness of an alley, with a sick wife and starving children at home but no money for food or medicine. Suddenly, there\u2019s El Santo! He\u2019s got a fat wad of cash and gives it to the poor man, no questions asked, because that\u2019s the kind of guy El Santo is.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In between fighting monsters on the big screen, El Santo found time to fight them in the ring, where heroic wrestlers, known as &lt;em&gt;t\u00E9chnicos&lt;/em&gt;, face off against their evil counterparts, or &lt;em&gt;rudos&lt;/em&gt;. Like the luchador films, wrestling itself was a fantasy where right always triumphed over wrong. El Santo was pure &lt;em&gt;t\u00E9cnico&lt;/em&gt;, and part of why he\u2019s so beloved in the history of lucha libre was that he never once turned &lt;em&gt;rudo&lt;/em&gt;. Flying off the ropes to headbutt opponents with names like The Horror, The Nazi and The Villain and finishing them with a hold called &lt;em&gt;la de a caballo&lt;/em&gt;, he wasn\u2019t the biggest star of a sweaty soap opera \u2013 he was the physical embodiment of good in a long-running morality play.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;El Santo begat El Hijo del Santo. He was the youngest of Guzman\u2019s 10 kids and the only one interested in continuing the family line in wrestling. Early on, El Santo begged his son not to go into lucha libre, but eventually he gave his blessing\u2014and his mask\u2014making the next generation of Santo possible. Shorter and smaller than his father, El Hijo del Santo took El Santo\u2019s moves and added more acrobatic flair. On the new higher-quality cameras of the era, El Hijo del Santo\u2019s speed and precision were perfect for producing slicker, more exciting visuals.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With the Santo mask came merchandising opportunities. The mask that stood for justice was now printed onto mousepads and stitched onto aprons, because nothing says \u201Ciconic folk hero\u201D like protecting your polo shirts from barbecue stains. El Hijo del Santo used the name to open his own chain of coffee shops emblazoned with his father\u2019s mask. He attempted some films, but even in the context of the luchador movie, the movies\u2019 cornball quality was too much. He also developed a pilot for Cartoon Network Latin America that never took off. In that respect, it seemed the world of lucha had moved on.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;El Santo himself was slowing down. He had his first grandchild, Axel, who would grow up to become the next luchador in the family. Axel\u2019s childhood with El Santo was idyllic. \u201CWe spent hours in his study, and he let me see his capes and his trophies, telling me the history of each object.\u201D Axel remembers the man that thousands of lucha fans admired for his outsized masculinity painstakingly pouring hot chocolate back and forth from mug to mug to cool it for his grandson. Axel always knew his grandfather was El Santo, and once he was told not to tell any other kids his grandfather\u2019s true identity. The next day, Axel told everyone he knew.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Having started as a teenager, El Santo wrestled for over 50 years. In 1984, a year and a half after his retirement, Rodolfo Guzman died of a heart attack. He was 66. A short time before his death, he appeared on the Mexican talk show Contrapunto and, without prompting, rolled up the mask for a brief moment to show his face. It was a reminder to his fans that there were flesh and bones behind the mask.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drink tequila at the shrine of El Santo, Mexico's luchador wrestler @OyamelDC #DiadelosMuertos pic.twitter.com/toXN35YQPj\r\n\u2014 Russell W. Warnick (@russellwarnick) November 1, 2014\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He left the legacy of El Santo solely in the hands of his son. But though El Hijo del Santo claimed he always acted to defend his father\u2019s reputation, he took the character of El Santo in directions that upset the rest of the family. In the 90s, a character named Santo Negro emerged as a rival for El Hijo del Santo. The supposedly \u201Cevil\u201D version of El Santo was dressed in black and came from the jungles of South America. El Santo\u2019s family was pissed and believed that their brother had something to do with the scheme. The family went to the promoter responsible to demand , out of respect for El Santo, that the gimmick be done away with, and Santo Negro was never seen from again.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[pagebreak]\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some years later, again trying to generate some heat around his gimmick, El Hijo del Santo did the unthinkable and turned &lt;em&gt;rudo&lt;/em&gt;. Walking into a three-versus-three match dressed as another wrestler, El Hijo del Santo removed his disguise and began attacking the three &lt;em&gt;t\u00E9cnicos&lt;/em&gt; fighting that night. The audience was so upset that fans shoved each other in the crowd and grandmothers and little children screamed at now-villainous Santo.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Around the same time, the grandson Axel was starting his own professional career. He steeped himself in the lucha libre tradition, training under luchadors like Daniel Garcia Arteaga, the famous Hurac\u00E1n Ram\u00EDrez and one of El Santo\u2019s close personal friends. He even went on to marry Hurac\u00E1n\u2019s daughter Karla. The challenge of balancing his grandfather\u2019s legacy fell to Axel, who says he worked to maintain the \u201Chonest and humble\u201D character of El Santo. \u201CWhen I\u2019m about to climb into a ring, in those moments just before being announced\u2014I already have the cape on, the mask\u2019s in place\u2014often I think in those moments, what would my grandfather think if he could see me working today?\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He began developing a gimmick where he would call himself El Plateado, with a mask design loosely based off El Santo\u2019s, and say he was El Nieto (grandson) del Santo. Before his official debut, he decided to pay his uncle a visit with the news, because he wanted El Hijo del Santo to hear the plans from him directly instead of from some journalist. Axel\u2019s place in El Santo\u2019s dynasty seemed secure.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Axel Nieto Dl Santo, se enfrenta a Hijo del Espanto II, el 7 de julio, en la Arena Coliseo... https://t.co/Z8IC3UzPMY pic.twitter.com/ofTyCBG6ec\r\n\u2014 WWL Mundial (@WWLMundial) June 10, 2013\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So when the calls started coming in trying to pressure Axel to bow out of wrestling, it was like a &lt;em&gt;plancha suicida&lt;/em&gt; to the heart. Axel says El Hijo del Santo phoned him after he appeared on a popular talk show, where the host referred to him as El Nieto del Santo, and told him he would never allow him to wrestle. Hurac\u00E1n Ram\u00EDrez was enraged. \u201CI\u2019m going to go to his house and I\u2019m going to sock that bastard,\u201D he told Axel. \u201CIf I go to jail, it doesn\u2019t matter, I\u2019m already an old man.\u201DThe old man never got his chance to exact his brand of street justice, and Axel began wrestling anyways.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mexico currently has two major national promotions: Asistencia Asesoria y Administraci\u00F3n, started in 1992, and the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, Mexico\u2019s oldest, plus numerous independent and regional promotions. Axel wrestled as a journeyman &lt;em&gt;t\u00E9cnico&lt;/em&gt;, focusing mostly on Mexico City but traveling as bookings came in. He says his uncle started sending letters and making calls to the promoters that were hiring him, threatening lawsuits. According to Axel, one promoter laughed at his uncle. \u201CWhat do you want?\u201D asked Martha Villalobos, of King of the Ring. \u201CHe earns less and fights better than you.\u201D Another time, it cost Axel work. After an angry call to the promoter following his debut in Naucalpan, Axel said he was dropped from the next 16 bookings in the city.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then in 2010 came the lawsuit. El Hijo del Santo asserted that Axel was violating the copyright to the name Santo. The sports outlet Cancha looked into the legal complaint and found that if El Hijo del Santo won, Axel would owe more than $2000 for every day he continued referring to himself as the grandson of El Santo. El Hijo del Santo didn\u2019t respond to email requests, but in 2013 he was interviewed about the lawsuit and told the reporter it was about Axel respecting his control over the Santo lineage. \u201CThe only thing I\u2019m searching for\u2014and I\u2019m telling you the truth\u2014is respect,\u201D he said drily. \u201CRespect and understanding that I\u2019m the one who chooses the third generation.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Axel couldn\u2019t have waited for that decision to be made. Speaking with me days after his 40th birthday, he\u2019s now been wrestling for decades, while Santo Jr., El Hijo del Santo\u2019s son, was only just entering training. Everything about El Hijo del Santo isn\u2019t quite right in the world of lucha libre. When an occasion required something more formal than spandex briefs and a cape, El Santo showed up in a tailored suit with necktie. Santo Jr. often shows up to public events in a blazer thrown over a t-shirt like some kind of frat bro, automatic Santo disqualification if there is one. When he speaks, his slow, clumsy movements make it difficult to pin one\u2019s hopes on him to continue El Santo\u2019s legacy.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CIf I could speak to my uncle,\u201D Axel says, \u201CI could make him see it\u2019s absurd arguing that I\u2019m the grandson of Rodolfo Guzman Huerta but not the son of El Santo.\u201D\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Alguna vez vi luchar en vivo a @ElHijodelSanto, ahora me toco ver a Axel, el Nieto del Santo. Buen luchador! Saludos pic.twitter.com/lLhZMW6a0N\r\n\u2014 Rub\u00E9n Neftali (@ruben_neftali) May 15, 2013\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Broken families are bad enough, but what\u2019s truly disappointing is that this rivalry was never played out in the ring. Wrestlers go to the mat for titles and fame, and even put their masks on the line in &lt;em&gt;luchas de apuestas&lt;/em&gt;. Years of legal battles could have been turned into 20 solid minutes of action to determine the existential conclusion of El Nieto del Santo.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;El Hijo del Santo\u2019s fears that his father\u2019s legacy could be damaged aren\u2019t off-base. Lucha libre is full of imposters trying to make a buck off a famous name and mask. Axel\u2019s father-in-law Daniel Garc\u00EDa Arteaga never owned the rights to the Hurc\u00E1n Ram\u00EDrez character\u2014he wasn\u2019t even the first to play it\u2014and there are a handful of wrestlers using the mask claiming to be a relative. Another famed luchador, La Parka, also lost the rights to the name and must keep tweaking the name just enough to stay ahead of the copyright lawyers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For now, Axel says he\u2019s won all the legal challenges, and that a judge agreed with him that if he\u2019s truly the grandson of Rodolfo Guzm\u00E1n, he\u2019s also the Nieto del Santo. The wounds opened between him and his uncle still hurt. For now, he goes by Heredero de Plata, which translates awkwardly to the Silver Heir, and doesn\u2019t make direct mention of El Santo in his promotions in order to avoid more legal trouble. \u201CWe\u2019re the only dynasty of luchadors that are fighting amongst themselves,\u201D he says. \u201CI\u2019m defending my legitimate right to work, he\u2019s defending money.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One question keeps coming up in El Hijo del Santo\u2019s interviews that hints at a sadder reason for all the attempts to control the Santo legacy. He once interviewed Santo Jr. and lobbed the softest of softball questions, \u201CWhat do you like more, being the son of El Hijo del Santo or being the son of the man behind the mask?\u201D His son mumbled his way through it, but the asking itself pointed at something more painful.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In every dynasty, the new generation always loses some part of their individuality and endures comparison with those who came before. The expectations can be the spark that pushes young stars to train and compete harder just as easily as they can be a stone that drags down the athletes that can\u2019t live up to them. Those troubles are magnified for the masked wrestlers of lucha libre, whose faces often stay hidden from the public for their entire careers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhen I put on the mask, I'm transformed. The mask gives me strength. The mask gives me fame. The mask is magical,\u201D El Hijo del Santo once told ESPN. He never equaled his father\u2019s popularity, but he was always more eloquent. \u201CUsually with the mask on, everything is positive. Without the mask I'm a normal human being who has his problems, who cries, who sometimes suffers.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI could tell you that I really admire El Hijo del Santo. But do you know who I admire more? The human being. Thanks to him, El Hijo del Santo has a life. And this human being sometimes sacrifices a lot to give this other identity life.\u201D At this point, is there still a Jorge Guzm\u00E1n behind the mask of El Hijo del Santo, or was the fight for El Santo\u2019s identity so bitter because it was the only one he had anymore?\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Follow Peter D'Amato and Extra Mustard on Twitter and Facebook&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2014/11/05/luchador-divided>