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The G.O.A.T. 100 #77 | Tarzán López
- Peter Edge
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Welcome to the G.O.A.T. 100 where we will count down with PWM wrestling historian Peter Edge the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time, based on many different stats and criteria. A new wrestler will be added on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Here is a link to an introduction essay with Peter explaining his GOAT100 concept. At the bottom of the article you can find the GOAT 100 Portal with links to all profiles so far published, as well as a visual key... Enjoy learning more about the history of our great hobby!
The big municipalities of wrestling are the USA, Japan and Mexico – I think we can all agree on that. Every municipality has its foundation though. You can't build Rome in a day but you can have a talisman to build a city around and lucha’s talisman in its early years was someone by the name of Tarzán López.
Carlos López Tovar was born on August 28th, 1912 in Jerez, Mexico. As a young adult he became an amateur boxer, and also dabbled in swimming.
At 21 years old, Carlos went to a show in Guadalajara put on by a wrestling company called EMLL that was just three months into its existence. EMLL would be the first Mexican company owned by a Mexican promoter to put on shows in Mexico – it had mainly been promoters from north of the border that brought shows to Mexico before this. Salvador Lutteroth was a property inspector for the national tax department when he went to a show in El Paso, Texas where he marvelled at the art of wrestling, leading him to found EMLL.
Upon seeing his first show, Tovar was so impressed with the new phenomenon of lucha libre that he abandoned his career in amateur boxing to pursue a living in wrestling. Trained by Diablo Velazco, who also trained other Mexican wrestling legends such as Gory Guerrero, Perro Aguayo and Mil Mascaras – Carlos would make his debut on April 12, 1934 as Carlos López beating Enrique Gonzalez on a card at the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City.
Making a name for himself wrestling for EMLL, he was a hot enough prospect that he was placed on the cards for Arena Nacional, the 3,500-seat building that was EMLL’s premier venue at the time, before today's "cathedral of lucha" Arena México opening in 1956.
Gaining the "Tarzan" nickname from fans because of his Tarzan-esque physique, his first feud under the name came against Salvador Flores, who was himself nicknamed Hercules del Ring due to his own impressive physique catching the attention of fans, not just in the wrestling arenas but on the street.
With sports papers starting to cover EMLL, Tarzán became the primary focus of the media. The words “future legend” would be mentioned. He then became the second ever Welterweight champion of Mexico. By this point, López was considered the best worker in Mexico… and possibly the best in the world, with all of the attributes that many would argue were necessary to survive in this time. Tarzán could shoot if needed with his abilities as a boxer, as well as his training in Greco Roman wrestling that he also went through as a teenager.
His reign as Welter champ featured a feud with “El Maestro” Raúl Romero thought to be the best matches in the Mexican scene at this time, gaining rave reviews from media especially in the sports papers that had fallen in love with the new sport. Whether or not the actually had the title on the line has been reported differently depending on who one read.
This reign would last until 1939 when he vacated the belt for unknown reasons. But a likely explanation is to facilitate a move up to Middleweight, where he succeeded Octavio Gaona as its face after taking the National Middleweight Title. The prestige of the middleweight division meant that the NWA World Title in the Middleweight division would be based in Mexico.
Tarzán’s multi-year reign with the Mexican Middleweight Title, during which time he also won the NWA World title in the same division, ended at the hands of Black Guzman on May 12th, 1941, with the NWA belt also ending up in Guzman’s hands as the year of 1941 ended.
That loss came to allow López to take 3 weeks off over the Christmas and New Year period. López would go on to win the belt back just two months after his December 16th, 1941 loss to Guzman. After that brief interruption, López would go on to hold the NWA World Middleweight Title for the next four years before finally losing the belt to Gory Guerrero. Tarzán would hold the NWA title in the middleweight division four times in all, with a 481 day reign in 1949/50 and a 342 day final reign in 1952/53
López’s time as king of the middleweights brought on a surge in business. EMLL was running all seven nights of the week with the majority of shows being held in 400-500 capacity gyms, while the big Friday night shows were held in the Lutteroth-owned Arena Coliseo.
Salvador would later build arenas in Acapulco and Guadalajara – not needing to rent buildings for his biggest shows would see him become one of the most profitable promoters in pro wrestling in the 40s.
Lately we have been looking back at the life of Ted Turner, and it’s not hard to find similarities between the magnate from the Peach State and Lutteroth. Salvador founded a baseball team, Diablo Rojos del Mexico, whose 18 titles (including winning the last two Mexican Leagues) make them the winningest franchise in Mexican Baseball history. Along with the baseball and wrestling, he would also promote boxing. There is an argument to say he was one of the great business minds of modern Mexican history.
Tarzán would win Luchador of the Year three times as voted by the national media, which in my opinion is akin to how Kobe Bryant only won the NBA MVP once. I have Tarzán at 13 Mexico MVP wins in my tallies. He was that important to the scene as the 1940s went on. (To be fair, like Tokyo Sports awards, these awards needed to make the wrestlers happy, so the love had to be shared around.)
In September 1942, López defended his NWA belt against Harry Fields, a British wrestler from Wakefield in Yorkshire that Box y Lucha's poll had as "best match of the 40s".
The first show ever at EMLL's new building, La Arena Coliseo, would take place on April 2nd, 1943. His opponent was a young rising star who was the brother of Black Guzman by the name of El Santo. Working as a rudo, El Santo was going through every major star in EMLL, and got put in a match against the number-one wrestler in Mexico in Lopez. Tarzán won in two straight falls, but the loser left the match with respect from the fans by hanging with the champion in both falls.
After the match, Santo said (in kayfabe) that he'd been beaten by an unbeatable wrestler, and that there was no shame in losing against the best in the business. Years later, Santo had the following to say about him:
“He wasn't just the best, he was the most popular as well. He was like a God to the fans. He wasn't very tall, but he was wide and very well built. Very strong man, but also very agile. [...] His move set was incredible. He mastered all the classic holds. In the mat he really was almost unbeatable. He always was very graceful. [...] He also knew the right holds to finish his opponents: the best and most painful ones. He even invented a few ones, like "el nudo". Without a doubt he was a prodigy of a wrestler, and he probably was the toughest opponent I ever faced during my career".
On Feb 23, 1946, Gory Guerrero defeated López for the NWA Welterweight title at Coliseo, Guerrero got the label of "consagrado", a term used for someone that in arts or sports that has achieved a status that is legendary. The match has been seen by lucha historians as one of the great matches of its era.
In 1949, after a long build up, Tarzán López defeated Mike Kelly, billed as being from Ukraine, in the main event of the 16th Anniversary Show. This was a textbook professional wrestling title chase angle. Kelly had beaten Guerrero to win the NWA Welterweight belt the year before and post-title win, the story told in Mexican media was that Kelly was going to leave Mexico to defend the belt around the world and that the company had to put up a huge hosting fee to get Kelly to defend against somebody in Mexico, and that somebody the company chose was its MVP, López.
It was the ultimate happy ending with Tarzán winning the belt the lucha fans believed it was their right to keep at home, in a match that won MOTY in the year-end company polls. He debuted a new submission move to win the match called "el nudo", a standing figure four that would later become famous as the Signo Special in the 80s.
López' last major singles title win was on Sept 9, 1956, winning the vacant National Light Heavyweight Title, his third reign in what was his third different weight division. Claiming this belt occurred five years after the belt had been vacated when Enrique Llanes was stripped of the championship. Tarzán himself vacated the title in January 1957 for unverified reasons.
Lopez also pursued gold in the tag-team division, which was more relevant for impact on his personal life than professional. During the late 40s he first teamed with Enrique Llanes (the brother of Eddy Guerrero's mother) who went on to become his in-real-life best friend. Llanes was an amateur wrestler who wanted to get into lucha libre, so he came to a deal with López. Llanes and López friendship came after a teacher/student relationship in which Enrique would get lucha lessons and in exchange López would get locksmith training (which was Llanes' IRL job).
Llanes went on to become a worker with a reputation as a very fine technician, known along with López as being a master of the llave, (luche submission wrestling) as well as López' most famous tag team partner in "La Pareja Ideal". However this team never won gold as a duo, with Lopez’s sole tag championship coming with Henry Pulisso in 1959, a reign that lasted three years – but with very little documentation associated.
It would be the final title reign of Lopez’s career as he held the belt with Henry until his final day as a pro wrestler.
The way Tarzán López left the wrestling business came in a sadly unexpected and sudden way. He went to the EMLL office and asked Güero Flores, the man thought to be the one in the office that physically paid the wrestlers, for some extra money because a person very close to him got very ill and needed expensive medicines. López said he was fine with getting that amount discounted from his monthly payoff.
Flores refused to give Carlos that money stating that "la empresa isn't a bank or a pawn house". The Lutteroths, knowing they had a monopoly of national lucha libre in the years before any national rival came to fruition were known for being very ungrateful to their wrestlers, even the biggest stars in the company.
Back in the day, the case of Tarzán López and the scenes of his departure is one of the most repeated tales in the history of lucha libre. If one of the originals and one of the greatest money draws was treated this way by the office, we can only guess about the mid and low card talent that appeared on EMLL shows.
Salvador "Chavo" Lutteroth Jr. – who had taken over from his father after Sr. ceded control of the company, was famous for being tight with money. That's one of the reasons why El Santo, Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras, people with even more cemented legacies, (and who will have even more detailed bios coming up in our G.O.A.T. 100) became free agents when their contracts expired, and it's the reason many roster members were quick to join the opposition groups such as UWA and AAA when they took on the monopoly that was E/CMLL – which led to those opposition groups succeeding.
Seeing the extent of the disrespect and ungratefulness from the promotion he had built, Tarzán quit and left the business foregoing any big retirement ceremony. He had a last match, but he didn't even get a final standing ovation from the crowd because the fans weren't told he was leaving.
Tarzan just disappeared. He never appeared on a wrestling show again and declined to give interviews to the media in Mexico for the rest of his life – not even talking about the business in private by all accounts.
In retirement, Lopez invested the money he earned during his years in wrestling into the skill he'd learned from his best friend Llanes, opening a chain of locksmith shops. Llanes would be one of the few people he kept in touch with post-wrestling.
López would pass away on August 28, 1975, on his 63th birthday, after a battle with cancer, and was buried at the Panteón Español in Zacatecas.
CMLL is one the promotions in 2026 that the wrestling world revolves around with longstanding international partnerships with AEW and NJPW. Arena México sells out frequently. When stars from the world of lucha come to cities all around the world, fans have unforgettable moments watching them. But when fans pop for Mistico and Mascara Dorada, part of that pop does belong to Tarzán López, the man who helped put lucha libre on the map.
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