Salvador Lutteroth

Salvador Lutteroth González (21 March 1897 – 5 September 1987) was a Mexican professional wrestling promoter of the mid-twentieth century. Lutteroth's organization, Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (EMLL), was the dominant Mexican wrestling promotional enterprise from its founding in 1933 until Lutteroth left the company in the 1950s. Under its current name of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), it is, to date, the longest-running active professional wrestling promotion in the world presenting three weekly shows. Lutteroth was known as the father of Mexican professional wrestling or lucha libre and, in his position as promoter and booker of the dominant promotion, was the most powerful man in Mexican wrestling, and one of the most powerful wrestling executives in the world. He was, in large part, responsible for the widespread fame of the most famous Mexican professional wrestlers of the mid-twentieth century, such as Octavio Gaona, the first Mexican wrestler to win the middleweight championship of the world by defeating Gus Kallio, Carlos Tarzán López, El Santo, Gory Guerrero, René Guajardo, Karloff Lagarde, Enrique Llanes, and the international league wrestler Medico Asesino, Rito Romero, Dorrel Dixon and Mil Máscaras, who wrestled in the United States, Japan, and Europe.