What do you think of....

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

A lot of good responses for my thread on thoughts and memories of Don Muraco, but that's slowing down and I thought I would start another. This one with Tito Santana.

 

Santana to me seems like either the greatest company man ever or the guy who was most screwed by the glass ceiling. I have a tape of him doing a nothing match with some jobber on Wrestling Challenge from around 1993 and he is still getting mad pops from the crowd. Tito was always very sound in the ring and very over from what I recall. But despite an IC title reign early in his WWF stint and a later tag title reign with Rick Martel, he always seemed buried in the mid-card.

[EL DANDY~! 0]

Tito was one of those spunky competitors. A man who was very charismatic, and with somewhat of a fiery latin temper, he could turn it on when he needed to. Flying Jalapeno is one of my favorite names for a move, and it sucks that he was reduced to "EL Matador" Actually, he won an IC title as El Matador, but I think back as a part of STRIKE FORCE~! with Martel, he was a great wrestler. Very underappreciated.

[Guest lowavenue]

I loved Bobby Heenan's jokes about Tito running away from immigration on the front row.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

The last time Santana held the IC belt was in 1985. He lost it to Savage long before he became El Matador there, El Dandy.

[Guest imajackoff?]

Talk about a guy who would work his ass of to make someone look good. In his later JTTS days, he would be stuck with the likes of the Warlord and Ludvig Borga and make them look not quite a shitty as they were. Santana's glass ceiling was that I dont think Vince thought Tito would make a good heel. Any face during that era played a well obscured second fiddle to Hogan.

[Guest Slingshot Suplex]

I always thought of Tito as solid yet unspectacular.Good feud with Greg Valentine over the IC title.

[cawthon777 0]

Santana, like Ricky Steamboat on the other side of the fence, was one of the best babyfaces of all time. There was nothing heelish about him and despite his win-loss record, he was always a big fan favorite.

 

Back in the late 70s-early 80s, Santana had a tag team title run with Ivan Putski before going out as a singles wrestler and once faced and lost to a heel Hulk Hogan. He looks to have been in relative obscurity before he won the IC title from Muraco in 1984, mere weeks after Hogan's title win. What's interesting is that footage of his win was lost or destroyed or something because on the IC title Coliseum Home Video (1987) they only had a clip shown. Santana then explained that he win with a sunset flip-type move after Muraco missed a tackle.

 

As IC champ, he put away everyone from Terry Funk, Greg Valentine, Randy Savage, Jesse Ventura, to Bob Orton Jr. (many of which were main event talent regularly challenging Hogan). The feud with Valentine was probably the biggest of 84-85 (at least for those who weren't as interested in Piper / Hogan). Santana eventually regained the title and ended the over year-long feud in a cage match in Baltimore after kicking the door into Valentine's face while escaping over the top (ala Jericho / Regal from last spring).

 

After the title loss to Savage, Santana was still in the spotlight but slowly began his journey to JTTS status. Strike Force was huge while it lasted but maybe too babyface for the times since so many fans sided with the heel Demolition. After Rick Martel was injured in a match against Demolition that June, Santana returned to the singles scene where he did nothing despite putting on solid matches with almost everyone.

 

The heels of WrestleMania V put the spotlight back on Santana in his feud against Martel, which he lost hands-down aside from winning the 89 KOTR by defeating Martel in the finals. He had several good matches with Mr. Perfect at this time, who was starting his rise to main event star.

 

1990-91 was the true start to his JTTS career as he lost all his pay-per-view singles bouts. However, during both year's Survivor Series he made a very good showing for himself (pinned the Warlord in under 30 seconds).

 

Once he lost to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania VIII (which everyone saw coming), there was no going back to credible title contender. During the rest of 92-93, Santana lost to Razor Ramon, Papa Shango, Bam Bam Bigelow, and just about any other fresh monster heel.

 

He returned around 98 as a commentator at the Spanish announce table and helped hype that years' Royal Rumble, since he was the first entry to the initial Rumble in 88.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

Tito never did much for me, granted I was a kid and all...I always thought of him as a poor man's Ricky Steamboat.

 

Jesse ripping on him would kill me though

[Guest goodhelmet]

hell, jesse's insults of tito santana offended me but i was a huge fan back in the day and jesse got under my skin.

 

also, i have owned only two wrestling shirts in my life.. the original nWo shirt AND

the tito santana arriba! shirt. tito rules. it's a shame he never got more props.

[Guest Slingshot Suplex]

As IC champ, he put away everyone from Terry Funk, Greg Valentine, Randy Savage, Jesse Ventura, to Bob Orton Jr. (many of which were main event talent regularly challenging Hogan). The feud with Valentine was probably the biggest of 84-85 (at least for those who weren't as interested in Piper / Hogan). Santana eventually regained the title and ended the over year-long feud in a cage match in Baltimore after kicking the door into Valentine's face while escaping over the top (ala Jericho / Regal from last spring).

Was Terry Funk in the WWF during Santana's 2 nd IC reign?

 

The Valentine feud was great though.Santana regains the title ..avenging his title loss and his injured knee.And then after the match,Valentine destroys the IC title by smashing it into the ring post.

 

I saw a couple of matches where Ventura challanged Tito for the IC title.Both crowds were defintely pro-Jesse despite Jesse being the heel. Ventura won both matches by countout and when the announcer declares Jesse the winner,the crowd pops big time.Then the "belt doesn't change hands on a count out" speech comes out and the crowd boos except for a Hardy-like young girl scream of approval from the crowd.

 

Remember Danny Davis being the ref during Tito's IC loss to Savage and a year later they tried to play it off as Davis costing Santana the belt? Give the WWF credit for trying to refer to storyline history but Davis didn't do anything ref heelish in the match so I thought it was a stretch at the time.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

Funk and Dory were both in the WWF during the period, I'm not sure of the exact dates. I know for fact that they had a match with Tito and JYD at Wrestlemania 2 and that played like there was some backstory there.

[Guest Studmaster 2000]

Tito never did much for me, granted I was a kid and all...I always thought of him as a poor man's Ricky Steamboat.

And this is a bad thing, how? (I know how, but humor me) I rather be a poor man's imitation of my favorite all time Wrestler...Then the original Kevin Nash, that's for certain. (I'm not trying to get under your skin here, but there are many far worse things for Tito be called)

[Guest MillenniumMan831]

As ridiculous as this sounds, I was a HUGE fan of his theme music growing up. So I'd get pissed when he'd race to the ring and they'd cut it off after 20 seconds. Eh well.

 

To me, Tito made being a corny, cookie-cutter face cool. I think if you'd take 1988-1990 Santana into today's world, fans wouldn't rebel against him as much as you'd think. Sure he was hokey, but his Mexican Rage comebacks were still pretty cool.

[Guest Smark Hammill]

Tito Santana stinks.....he needs to be sprayed with some Arrogance.

[Guest Sturgis]

I always thought of Tito as solid yet unspectacular.Good feud with Greg Valentine over the IC title.

I agree with you 100%

 

BTW I met Tito once and he is nicest wrestler I've met next to Capt. Lou and Simion Diamond.

[Guest cabbageboy]

Tito was one of my faves growing up. Not so much as El Matador since he was essentially a JTTS at that point, but his IC run and his tag stuff with Martel. Yes I am a Strike Force mark. In fact my first good memory of wrestling was seeing them against two masked jobbers on All American Wrestling.

[Guest pete]

I was always a fan of his work. For the times he had a real athletic workrate. On the house show circuit that I saw him work during 89-91 in Houston his match was one of the top on the card. His opponents ranged from Martel,Dibiase,Hennig and the Warlord. He was definetely an asset to the company.