Talk his name and he shall appear. I regret it already; almost every post in this thread makes me depressed. "Why El Santo is on here is beyond me" says Luna. Hopefully we shall learn why this is a moronic statement in time, though I'm not really the best person to offer an education on Mexicans.
Poll One: Who honestly gives a shit?
Poll Two: It's Santo and there really isn't any argument to be made. To put this into perspective; Gagne is very possibly my favorite wrestler of all time, and even I concede that he's not at Santo's level. Fuck; Hulk Hogan was probably never quite at Santo's level. But that's a story for later on; for now we shall start at the bottom and work our way up.
At the bottom of the pile we have Buddy Rogers, a man who history only remembers because Flair decided to take up his nickname. Rogers career contributions were significant, but no more so than a man like Pat O'Connor or Don Leo Johnathon who have passed more or less out of public recollection.
By far Buddy Rogers' biggest contribution to the wrestling industry was the time Vince McMahon tried to build a promotion around him, only for him to bomb horribly, pretend to have a heart attack and disappear from the wrestling circuit for the best part of a decade. This indirectly let to the rise of Bruno Sammartino and the beginning of WWWF dominance, but given that Rogers' contribution to the story basically involved fucking up, I don't think we can lay too much credit at the man's feet.
Plus the man was a piece of shit. He was woefully unprofessional, commonly refused to sell, refused to job, refused to go over ten minutes, made unreasonable demands of promoters, refused to travel outside the east coast even when he was supposed to be national champion and treated his fellow performers like crap. He got the shit kicked out of him for being disrespectful on numerous occasions, and contrary to popular opinion, that kind of thing almost never happened. If you're interested in learning more about Rogers' charicter then I'd advise looking into the way he treated the Fabulous Moolah during the period she served as his valet; the man was an unadulterated scumbag.
The only real positive on his resume is that, when NWA champion, he was one of the time draws in the US. That lasted an entire three years, before which he was playing a poor second fiddle to Rocca, and after which he wasn't relevant at all. Three good years and being a wrestler that Ric Flair liked is not enough to justify a hall of fame spot.
Next we have Gagne, who I sort of feel I have written enough about this year. Search back to his matches in this year's Wrestlezone Tournament if you're really interested, but the Cliff Notes are that he ran the second most successful wrestling promotion in American history, trained more top talent than you can possibly imagine and pretty much saved what we now call "technical wrestling" from fading into obscurity. The man's contributions were massive even when you don't consider his career. He was one of the most over wrestlers in the US, he was probably wrestling's first national television star, he was a huge deal in both the NWA and AWA. The man is a legend in every sense of the word, and he should be in the hall of fame already.
What he is not however is El Santo. You really want Tastycles for this since I've never taken the time to study Mexican wrestling history, but the essential truth is this. El Santo was more popular in Mexico than Hulk Hogan was in the US. Santo was more of a cultural icon than any other professional wrestler has even been, before or after. El Santo's funeral was one of the largest in Mexican history and there are statues of the man dotted around the place. When it comes to overness the man was on a whole other level. He is unquestionably the greatest in Mexican histroy and one of the greatest in the history of the world. He should be in the hall of fame.
The only reason to vote any other way is because you hate Mexicans. Anyone who disagrees with my assessment is a bigot.
EDIT: Holy fuck; did I just make a non-spam post?
