Could it be the autograph of "The Saint?"

September 23, 2017 marks what would have been the 100th birthday of El Santo. To simply call the man one of the pioneers of lucha libre would be an understatement. It has often been told to us American fans that we simply could not fathom what El Santo means to his home country of Mexico. That his significance to his people was unlike anything that a professional wrestler here in the United States would ever achieve. That being said, did an authentic El Santo autograph finally make its way to my collection?

"If this thing is real, I'd love to have it."

The above sentence isn't my own quote, but when I first came across this signed photo, I suddenly imagined I'd walked into an episode of Pawn Stars. Since I had no way of personally authenticating it, I looked at some facts. I acquired the photo very inexpensively in what seemed to be a broken up collection along with some unsigned photos of other stars. The collection came from Texas, a state where obtaining autographs of luchadores would not be unheard of.

"It looks great to me, but I have to be sure. Mind if I call in an expert?"

Unfortunately, there aren't many lucha autograph experts to be found on the Internet, at least not readily. What's even worse is that there don't seem to be any examples of El Santo's autograph available for viewing, either. When searching for the autograph one only yields results featuring the signature of El Santo's son, El Hijo del Santo. In essence, I had to go on my own judgment...

"My opinion? It appears to be real."

The other photos in the collection are all of stars who worked in the Houston area in 1974. El Santo did in fact wrestle in that territory at the time. How good was the legend at signing autographs? There's no doubt in my mind that an astute fan could have obtained the signature before or after a Houston show. Until we have other examples, it's as good as any other El Santo autograph that would show up with that good of a back story.