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Tito Santana Appreciation Thread


Ricky Jackson

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Even Tito Santana's post-prime years were better than Storm's. Look at 1990. Tito made it to the final of the I.C. title tournament and made it to the final match at Survivor Series. He got a strictly mid-card push that year but I think that year is more impressive than anything Storm did in the WWE. People need to go back and watch that Regal/Storm team to see just how miserable and unover they were.

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Indeed. People rag on Paul Roma for the Horsemen deal, but he was a solid worker from what I remember. Hell, Power & Glory and Pretty Wonderful were much better teams than The Impact Players. And Lance wasn't the best member of the team, while Roma probably was on both accounts (not sure how good Orndorff was at this point, but I can't wait to get to those years).

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Roma was a natural heel. The two big mistakes about his introduction into the Horsemen were : 1/ making a big deal about it instead of playing the understudy card. 2/ being introduced into a face version of the Horsemen.

It's about time to re-evalue Paul Roma.

I agree the Young Stallion were a putrid team. Jim Powers was a terrible worker.

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It would have unfortunately fallen apart quickly due to Windham's injuries, but Flair vs The Horsemen was a feud that was planned and never happened in both 1988 and 1989. Flair against a new group of Windham, Arn and the Blonds would have been really fun.

In mid 91 they were teasing a Flair vs Horsemen feud as well. They did several interviews with Arn and Windham saying they wanted to take care of their singles career and get championships, then asked Flair what would happen if either of them would request a title match, which of course would annoy Flair. Of course the plan was still for Flair to dropo the belt to Luger, but the seeds were planted.

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They figured out how to get 49 wrestlers onto the Wrestlemania XX card but couldn't find a spot for Lance.

Jesus, that's depressing. Facts like this almost make me feel sorry for Lance. He seems like a really nice guy and he does make some interesting insights, but the more you look at it, his career really was underwhelming.

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They figured out how to get 49 wrestlers onto the Wrestlemania XX card but couldn't find a spot for Lance.

Jesus, that's depressing. Facts like this almost make me feel sorry for Lance. He seems like a really nice guy and he does make some interesting insights, but the more you look at it, his career really was underwhelming.

 

Considering both his in-ring talent (decent) and his charisma/promo skill (below average), I think his career has been pretty much what it should have been. Nice little run in ECW and WCW. A spot on WWF undercard. Add to that a few fun matches in Japan in WAR. I don't see what Lance could have achieve more than he did honestly. And yes, he seems like a nice guy, probably one of the few genuine nice guys without issue in pro-wrestling. I've been kinda hard on him in this thread, but I'm glad he's one who got out before getting severely injured and is able to enjoy a nice life afterward.

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I don't know, Bix told me about a few of Lance's commentaries on his website, including the Q&A's, and Lance can seem like a huge dick on there. Granted, some of the questions he gets on there aren't exactly brilliant, but...I mean, he knows he can pick and choose the best questions rather than just answering everything, right?

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It would have unfortunately fallen apart quickly due to Windham's injuries, but Flair vs The Horsemen was a feud that was planned and never happened in both 1988 and 1989. Flair against a new group of Windham, Arn and the Blonds would have been really fun.

Flair vs Windham, Arn and the Blonds would have been fun and produced a ton of great matches. The only problem with it that I see, is that the hardcore WCW fans wouldn't/didn't really like the idea of Flair & Arn on opposing sides. See Fall Brawl 95. Although the booking for that is too blame as well.

 

Saying that though. I think the idea in late 89/early 90 of Luger bringing Arn & Tully back to feud with Flair/Sting & Pillman would have been awesome. I think at that point in time fans would have bought it.

 

By 93 I think the best course of action was Flair,Arn & Eaton vs The Blonds & Windham ( and later Rude).

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Lance doesn't strike me as a dick, so much as just being the kind of person that actually answers a question with his honest opinion when someone asks. It's not like he's gone out of his way to troll the hell out of people over the years like, say, Shane Douglas.

 

I'm not a fan of his though. Never have been, never will be.

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  • 4 weeks later...

What an edition of Tito Santana vs. The World we've got in store for you today.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #38 -- Skinner

 

The alligator man. These guys did some things worthy of Steve Keirn vs. Tito Santana, but if work is ever a barometer of how happy guys are both these guys seemed glum.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #39-- The Repo Man

 

This was surprisingly good. I mean in a video library filled with matches that were never booked to anywhere and workers who didn't give a shit, these guys actually tried. It didn't count for much in the end, but there were some fun exchanges. Fuck knows what was going through Vince's mind with these gimmicks, though.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #40-- IRS

 

Boring as shit. In other words, Rotunda's forte. Some guys are mechnical and sterile (Canek, Blue Demon Jr), Rotunda was just boring. It was like a disease.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #41 -- The Berzerker

 

Coliseum Video, how was this a grudge match? I'll say this for Tito, the man had professional pride. Could have been worse.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #42-- w/ High Energy vs. The Repo Man and Nasty Boys

 

Five star match. On par with the best lucha trios and All Japan six-mans.

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On second review it wasn't a five star match. Sorry to disappoint.

Still sounds like it's worth checking out.

 

Aw man, that wasn't cool. Here I come home after a hard day at work, thinking I'm going to watch some hidden gem that you've dug up, and no.

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  • 3 weeks later...

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #43 -- The Undertaker

 

This was better than I expected. I hadn't seen the original Undertaker schtick in years and was expecting it to suck, but Tito Santana trying to kill a zombie was pretty exciting. This was an awfully big win for Tito at this point, possibly to get him over as a draw in front of a Spanish speaking audience? The finish took forever, though, as Undertaker fluffed around wrapping him up in a body bag. Then Tito hit two of the worst looking piledrivers you'll ever see. Match was fun, but I wouldn't bother with the finish.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #44 -- Jesse "the Body" Ventura

 

This was much better than I expected. I've always had this lingering memory of Jesse as one of the worst workers I've seen, but he wasn't that bad. He wasn't good, but he wasn't criminally bad. His matches with Tito couldn't been a whole lot better, but you could say that about 90% of Tito's matches. The Toronto bout is better than the Boston match. It gets cut off at the legs just as it's getting good, but it's a fun bout.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #45 -- Doink the Clown

 

This was pretty much what you'd expect from a Doink/Tito match. They didn't go out of their way to do anything special and therefore it's not one of those Hennig/Jannetty type Doink matches.

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