Tito Santana Appreciation Thread

[Franchise]

I was never a big Tito fan but I did enjoy a fair amount of his matches. I probably enjoyed his El Matador days & AWF run more than most.

 

The biggest problem I had w/ Tito was that there where always people around that I enjoyed watching more.

 

In the Mid 80's I had Valentine, Orton & Muraco

In the late 80's I had Demolition, Bravo & Valentine

In the early 90's I had Mr Perfect

During his AWF run I prefered Orton over Tito as well

 

It's to bad that they couldn't have kept Tito around longer. Virgil, Backlund & himself combined in various forms to have some decent matches together on Mania & AAW against rising talent. I think the 3 of them could have been used very well against teams like the Headshrinkers, Well Dunn, RnR & the Heavenly bodies. As all 3 where still in good shape and could move. I always felt like the WWF left a lot of good matches on the table after that time passed.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #4 -- "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff

 

I never have a problem with anything Paul Orndorff does, except for fact that it's unremarkable. He's one of those guys who is mechanically good but just doesn't excite me. There's nothing about his look that grabs me and there's nothing special about the way he moves or applies holds. But I watched two matches he had against Tito -- MSG 5/21/84 and St. Louis 9/1/84 -- and they were both pretty solid. They were very much "this is how you work a match if you're Paul Orndorff wresting Tito Santana," but the MSG match in particular is worth checking out for a hot crowd and Tito doing a big injury angle. Orndorff was pretty over at the time, which helped sustain my interest, and the matches built reasonably well even if the structure was somewhat generic. They also had a match from the Wrestling Challenge in '85 where they were both faces. They do some nice chain wrestling before things get heated. On the whole it was a decent match-up that like a lot of Tito match-ups needed a hotter angle.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #5 -- Jake "the Snake" Roberts

 

Eh, it's a Jake match. You always think it's going to be good then you wind up disappointed. The Tito match is from 11/26/86 in Houston and doesn't deliver much.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #6 -- "The Model" Rick Martel

 

In theory, this feud should've been as heated as the Valentine and Savage feuds, but for some reason the WWF mishandled it. There's a match from 4/22/89 in Boston that's a nice teaser. Martel attacks Tito as he's coming to ringside and Tito is unable to wrestle so they postpone the match until later in the show, where Martel takes full advantage of Tito's knee injury. Then there's their Saturday Night Main Event match from 9/21/89 which turns into a sort of impromptu lumberjack match when both their Survivor Series teams come to ringside. This was a pretty good match, actually, with plenty of chemistry between the two. It's been a long time since I saw Martel work and I'd forgotten his great facial expressions when taking a beating. Since we've been speaking about psychology in the other thread, Roddy Piper made a great point on commentary in one of their later matches that Martel is the type of wrestler who hates to get hit and will always take evasive action in such situations. This is so true. Anyway, the finish to the SNME match should be pretty obvious considering there's a heel team and a face team at ringside, but it's a good match with plenty of great reactions on the outside from the seconds. There's this great moment where Vince is talking about Martel's team being vultures and the director gets an awesome medium close-up of Bossman snarling. Vince recoils in disgust and blurts out "and there's the king vulture" in classic Vince fashion.

 

But where is the blowoff match, Vince? There's one later match they have from The Main Event dated 11/23/90 that's really good, but most of their stuff from 1990 lacks any sort of spark. They really needed to have the blowoff match at Survivor Series but back then it was strictly the team concept and no singles matches. Really disapponting that there's no definitive match because work wise it's one of Tito's better match-ups. The only bad match I saw (and I watched about a half dozen) was a match from '92. Jim Ross did commentary on it and sure enough the motherfucker couldn't help but talk about Tito's football career.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #7 -- The Big Bossman

 

This was from a special pre-Survivor Series episode of Prime Time Wrestling that featured singles match-ups amongst Survivor Series pairings. I remember these days like it was yesterday. Staying up late on Friday nights to watch WWF, living from PPV to PPV... They say you can never go home again and it's pretty much true with late 80s WWF, but still this was what you might expect from Tito vs. The Bossman without them giving away too much before the PPV or having a better match than the PPV match might be. Can't really fault a match that wasn't designed to be anything special.

[khawk20]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #6 -- "The Model" Rick Martel

 

In theory, this feud should've been as heated as the Valentine and Savage feuds, but for some reason the WWF mishandled it.

 

But where is the blowoff match, Vince? There's one later match they have from The Main Event dated 11/23/90 that's really good, but most of their stuff from 1990 lacks any sort of spark. They really needed to have the blowoff match at Survivor Series but back then it was strictly the team concept and no singles matches. Really disapponting that there's no definitive match because work wise it's one of Tito's better match-ups. The only bad match I saw (and I watched about a half dozen) was a match from '92. Jim Ross did commentary on it and sure enough the motherfucker couldn't help but talk about Tito's football career.

The possible answer to the point about the WWF mishandling it (and why there was no blowoff) is that this feud was designed strictly to elevate Martel as a heel. I don't believe Santana won a single match in this feud (this is what I remember, I have not looked up the match results). Tito was beaten pretty definitively around the horn. If I'm right, the WWF didn't have a blowoff because it was strictly an upward push for Martel.

 

I think you're looking for this feud to have had some sort of back-and-forth to it like Jannetty-Michaels did when they had their breakup. That never seemed in the cards for Santana and Martel.

[ohtani's jacket]

I took a quick look at the results and seems they did a mixture of time limit draw and the Boston 4/22 angle. HistoryoftheWWE says Tito won a couple of times without specifying how. They didn't wrestle as many times as I would have imagined so I guess it wasn't as big a deal as I thought.

[PeteF3]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #7 -- The Big Bossman

Two mindblowing things about this: Boss Man busting out a frigging Doctor Bomb as a fairly throwaway move, and Santana going over. I mean, Boss Man's time as the #1 heel in the company was over and Santana wasn't quite the JTTS he'd become as El Matador, but that still surprises me that even with Dusty interfering that they'd give Santana a pinfall here, to the point where I wonder if it wasn't a punishment of some sort for the Boss Man.

 

EDIT: Piper name-dropping Truman Capote at the ad break would be a third one.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #8 -- "Handsome" Harley Race, the King of the Ring

 

The mind was willing but the body wasn't. Harley still did some cool things at this stage of his career, but he was so slow. I watched two bouts they had in '86, one from Boston and the other from MSG, and they were both pretty lifeless. Tito wasn't the kind of worker who pushes his opponent to do anything special. A lot of the time it seems like he's along for the ride w/ the heel dictating everything. This was the case here as Harley called these matches rather audibly. Unfortunately, he couldn't really bump anymore but was still using the same old match structure. Hence, the mind being willing but the body not.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #9 -- "Adorable" Adrian Adonis

 

This might have been a good match before the "adorable" gimmick, but Adonis' matches were messy. He never really got how to wrestle well and stooge in the same match. It's very disjointed the way he moves from one to the other. Plus, this match starts off with some good exchanges then turns into a three minute hammerlock. I like some of Tito's hammerlock spots against Don Muraco and Bob Orton, but I'm not about to praise him filling in time in this match. All told a bit of a disappointment, but it would've been a major surprise if it hadn't been. Match was from the Spectrum, 6/28/86.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #10 -- "Cowboy" Bob Orton

 

Orton was a nice opponent for Tito. They worked time limit draws against each other so the matches are a bit measured to say the least, but the work is mostly good. I saw an IC title defense from MSG (7/23/84) and a later match from Boston (8/9/86). Personally, I preferred the MSG match as it felt shorter and tighter, but they're both worth watching.

[khawk20]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #9 -- "Adorable" Adrian Adonis

 

This might have been a good match before the "adorable" gimmick, but Adonis' matches were messy. He never really got how to wrestle well and stooge in the same match. It's very disjointed the way he moves from one to the other. Plus, this match starts off with some good exchanges then turns into a three minute hammerlock. I like some of Tito's hammerlock spots against Don Muraco and Bob Orton, but I'm not about to praise him filling in time in this match. All told a bit of a disappointment, but it would've been a major surprise if it hadn't been. Match was from the Spectrum, 6/28/86.

At some point you should track this one down for comparison:

Tito Santana (WWF IC Champ) vs. Adrian Adonis (Keil Auditorium, 15:30 shown)

 

There may even be a longer version via WWE On Demand around now, I can't remember. The bout is from 1984, pre-Adorable gimmick.

 

There is also a Santana-Adonis bout from the AWA that I know was filmed (or at least parts of it were) as that film ran under the end credits on their TV in some markets. I think that would be a fun one to see as it would be from 1980-81-ish.

 

 

...also for some odd reason that Santana-Orton match from MSG is one of my favourites. It has always stuck with me and I have no idea why. I've never been able to explain it.

[jdw]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #7 -- The Big Bossman

Two mindblowing things about this: Boss Man busting out a frigging Doctor Bomb as a fairly throwaway move, and Santana going over. I mean, Boss Man's time as the #1 heel in the company was over and Santana wasn't quite the JTTS he'd become as El Matador, but that still surprises me that even with Dusty interfering that they'd give Santana a pinfall here, to the point where I wonder if it wasn't a punishment of some sort for the Boss Man.

Bossman was well off the peak of facing Hogan in the Heel pecking order. He had been jobbing around the horn to Dusty through pretty much the entire feud, which was getting long of tooth by the time of Survivor (the SNME blow off was already in the can at that point to air after Survivors). Before that, he and Akeem jobbed to Demo all over the place, which was pretty much the tag title feud right after Mania.

 

They seemed pretty much done with Bossman's heel push, and they turned him face after Rumble the next year. Why did Tito get the win as opposed to a bigger face? That's a good question, which you're touching on. Seems to have played into the Survivors match, and have Dusty there to be the cause to play into their feud.

 

John

[PeteF3]

Dusty was still much higher on the pecking order than Tito (and the WWF roster at this point was just absurdly imbalanced in favor of the babyfaces, and it would get worse before it got better with Boss Man turning and Von Erich arriving). I don't know for a fact but I'm guessing that it was Akeem doing 99% of the jobs in the tag title matches, as he did in the 6-man at SummerSlam.

 

Obviously you're not going to have Dusty going over the BBM on a Survivor Series preview show, but Beefcake was also on that team and he was actually in a higher spot than team captain Rhodes.

 

None of this should be read as a complaint, as this is probably Tito's last major win (trying to block that Jeff Jarrett fiasco from memory) and Lord knows we'd all rather see Tito in that match than Brutus. I still just find the result very odd.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #11 -- "Nature Boy" Ric Flair

 

As fate would have it, there are Flair vs. Santana matches from the beginning, middle and end of Flair's WWF tenure (Royal Albert Hall 10/3/91, SummerSlam Spectacular 8/23/92 and Monday Night Raw 1/18/93), so you get to see the evolution in Flair growing his hair back out at any rate. I don't really care for Flair after his 1990 feud with Luger and I think his WWF run is more interesting for his promos than ring work, but these were okay. The SummerSlam Spectacular was the most enjoyable match even if it was just an excuse to show what Perfect was capable of as the perfect manager. A houseshow match between these two might have been the best chance for a strong match, but as with most Tito matches no beef = no lasting impression.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #12 -- The Iron Sheik

 

Saw two matches between these guys. One was a WWF title match from the Spectrum (1/21/84) and the other was an IC title defense from the same venue (2/18/84.) The WWF title shot is apparently one of only two title matches Tito ever got. Does anybody know the other? It was worked less like a heavyweight title match and more like an affronted babyface sticking up for the red, white and blue, but neither guy minced around and since fired up Tito is the best Tito I appreciated the energy levels. The Sheik was a really fun worker and so I enjoyed this particular match-up. Worth checking out if you have some time to kill.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #13 -- Sgt. Slaughter

 

I would've preferred to see one of their matches from the early 80s, but all I could find were their Survivor Series Showdown match and their 11/24/90 Superstars match which were both taped at the Indianapolis Market Square Arena on 10/29/90. The Sarge was still a fun worker in his early 90s run and took some great bumps. The Survivor Series Showdown match was a bit slow, but the Superstars bout was a decent little match. It ended with Tito tied up in the ropes and Slaughter insulting all the immigrants in the US and ordering Tito to salute the Iraqi flag. Tito spat at the flag and Duggan made a run in to save him from the beating Slaughter was giving him before delivering this oddly eloquent speech about US immigration and the Gulf War situation and leading off chants of "USA, USA, USA" with Vince screaming crazy shit about sticking it to the country of Iraq. Just the sort of thing El P would dig.

[El-P]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #13 -- Sgt. Slaughter

(...) It ended with Tito tied up in the ropes and Slaughter insulting all the immigrants in the US and ordering Tito to salute the Iraqi flag. Tito spat at the flag and Duggan made a run in to save him from the beating Slaughter was giving him before delivering this oddly eloquent speech about US immigration and the Gulf War situation before leading off chants of "USA, USA, USA" with Vince screaming crazy shit about sticking it to the country of Iraq. Just the sort of thing El P would dig.

I actually remember this match and angle quite well, I was just becoming a wrestling fan at the time. And even back then, when I was 14, this made me uncomfortable. Of course I dind't had to listen to Vince's nonsense, but still, the whole angle was embarrassing enough. Actually, this might be the first time ever I was embarrassed to watch wrestling if my parents would be around.

 

On the same topic, just watched a Steiner squash from October 90, with a "lebanese" jobber called Hassan Farruk (what else ?), who they call an "arab" of course, because people from Lebabon are the same thing as people from Irak or Iran, those are all arabs after all. And then after the finish, Ross says that Hassan must be thinking about his former career as a camel driver. Not racist at all...

[jdw]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #8 -- "Handsome" Harley Race, the King of the Ring

 

The mind was willing but the body wasn't. Harley still did some cool things at this stage of his career, but he was so slow. I watched two bouts they had in '86, one from Boston and the other from MSG, and they were both pretty lifeless. Tito wasn't the kind of worker who pushes his opponent to do anything special. A lot of the time it seems like he's along for the ride w/ the heel dictating everything. This was the case here as Harley called these matches rather audibly. Unfortunately, he couldn't really bump anymore but was still using the same old match structure. Hence, the mind being willing but the body not.

I thought the Boston match was decent/watchable, while the MSG match was poor.

 

I'd disagree that Race was all that much slower than he had been the past few years in AJPW. Also, he could still bump: it's pretty clear in his match earlier in the year with Jumbo, and his matches the following year with Hogan (for whom he bumped all over the place).

 

The problem with these seem more a lack of getting their shit down together, as the MSG match had Tito working more WWF Face vs WWF Heel style, while the Boston match saw it move closer into working a Harley style match where he was on top more (especially the last 2/3 of the match). Given some time, working a long WWF feud (which went around the horn forever in 1984-89), you could easily see them improving on the Boston match to find the balance between a Harley Match and Tito Firey Comebacks, which draw the crowd in.

 

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #9 -- "Adorable" Adrian Adonis

 

This might have been a good match before the "adorable" gimmick, but Adonis' matches were messy. He never really got how to wrestle well and stooge in the same match. It's very disjointed the way he moves from one to the other. Plus, this match starts off with some good exchanges then turns into a three minute hammerlock. I like some of Tito's hammerlock spots against Don Muraco and Bob Orton, but I'm not about to praise him filling in time in this match. All told a bit of a disappointment, but it would've been a major surprise if it hadn't been. Match was from the Spectrum, 6/28/86.

This was a terrible match. Given how solid-to-good-to-great Tito looked the rest of 1986, this really felt like Adonis having a bad night or not really giving a shit at this point.

 

The match Kevin mentioned is one I've wanted to track down.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #10 -- "Cowboy" Bob Orton

 

Orton was a nice opponent for Tito. They worked time limit draws against each other so the matches are a bit measured to say the least, but the work is mostly good. I saw an IC title defense from MSG (7/23/84) and a later match from Boston (8/9/86). Personally, I preferred the MSG match as it felt shorter and tighter, but they're both worth watching.

They have these matches:

 

07/23/84 IC Title: Santana vs. Orton (20:00) - MSG

04/26/86 Santana vs Orton (9:51) - Detroit

07/26/86 Santana vs Orton (18:22) - Spectrum

08/09/86 Santana vs Orton (28:50) - Boston

 

I haven't seen the Philly match. The Detroit match is their equiv of a sprint. Solid, nothing great. I like the MSG match, and think the Boston match is a very good old school match with lots of good work.

 

John

[jdw]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #12 -- The Iron Sheik

 

Saw two matches between these guys. One was a WWF title match from the Spectrum (1/21/84) and the other was an IC title defense from the same venue (2/18/84.) The WWF title shot is apparently one of only two title matches Tito ever got. Does anybody know the other? It was worked less like a heavyweight title match and more like an affronted babyface sticking up for the red, white and blue, but neither guy minced around and since fired up Tito is the best Tito I appreciated the energy levels. The Sheik was a really fun worker and so I enjoyed this particular match-up. Worth checking out if you have some time to kill.

Thought the first Philly match was mediocre, and had high hopes for it. Haven't seen the second one yet.

 

John

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #14 -- The Hart Foundation

 

Is it just me or did the Hart Foundation suck as heels? Bret was unconvincing in his role as cocky young heel, Neidhart didn't even appear to be making an effort to play heel and Jimmy Hart didn't seem to give a shit. I watched three matches these teams had from '87 and two from '88 and all of them were worthless. They're not a very good showcase for Tito either as he tends to play FIP while Martel does all the work.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #15 -- "The Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff

 

This match from MSG (12/26/83) is missing about a third of what would make it a great match, but I liked it all the same. It was a slower, old-school WWF bout, but had plenty of nice touches like Tito using a full nelson to ram Koloff's head into the turnbuckle.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #16 -- Bad News Brown

 

I like Bad News more than most so I thought this was perfectly decent. It didn't really go anywhere as they weren't feuding at the time (to the best of my knowledge) so it was just a run through of Bad News' heel schtick. Tito retaliated quite a bit in reply, which was better than watching a meaningless stretch of Tito in peril. It's too bad Gorilla was in one of those belligerent moods where he wouldn't shut up about the referee.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #12 -- The Iron Sheik

 

Saw two matches between these guys. One was a WWF title match from the Spectrum (1/21/84) and the other was an IC title defense from the same venue (2/18/84.) The WWF title shot is apparently one of only two title matches Tito ever got. Does anybody know the other? It was worked less like a heavyweight title match and more like an affronted babyface sticking up for the red, white and blue, but neither guy minced around and since fired up Tito is the best Tito I appreciated the energy levels. The Sheik was a really fun worker and so I enjoyed this particular match-up. Worth checking out if you have some time to kill.

Thought the first Philly match was mediocre, and had high hopes for it. Haven't seen the second one yet.

 

John

 

If you didn't like the first match then there's no reason to watch the second. It's the exact formula Matt D and Jingus were talking about in the psychology thread. I just liked it because I think the Sheik is fun to watch. It would've been awesome if the matches had been on the level of Sheik's feud with Slaughter and Santana's work with Valentine and Savage, but I've kind of given up on the idea that Tito hit those high points against anyone else.

[Chess Knight]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #14 -- The Hart Foundation

 

Is it just me or did the Hart Foundation suck as heels? Bret was unconvincing in his role as cocky young heel, Neidhart didn't even appear to be making an effort to play heel and Jimmy Hart didn't seem to give a shit. I watched three matches these teams had from '87 and two from '88 and all of them were worthless. They're not a very good showcase for Tito either as he tends to play FIP while Martel does all the work.

It's not just you. Honestly they were dull as shit and I hardly like them much better as babyfaces.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #17 -- "The Birdman" Koko B. Ware

 

This was a face vs. face match-up from early '91 that like most Tito matches could've been so much more than it was. Some decent spots in between a failed attempt at Koko being the one to flare things up. Skippable.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #18 -- "Outlaw" Ron Bass

 

Rewatched their 8/22/87 MSG bout and definitely think it's one of Tito's best matches. I haven't seen much of Bass and don't know if he ever had a reputation as a good worker. He seems a Stan Hansen/Blackjack Mulligan cowboy clone to me, but if he wasn't a decent worker at some point in his career (which he probably was), he was having his JBL moment in this match. Really entertaining brawl with great selling to set it above the usual Tito fare. Their early Philly match (6/20/87) isn't anywhere near as good, but worth watching if you want to see some more from these two.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #19 -- Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake

 

Man, I knew that 1985 was the peak of Brutus' career work wise, but that didn't prepare me for how good their 5/18/85 match was. It's got to be the best singles match I've seen from Beefcake; hell, are there any other contenders? If the finish had been better I would've been pimping this even stronger, but as it is this is proof that everybody was good at some point.

[MikeCampbell]

DISCLAIMER: It's been years since I've seen it. But I really enjoyed Steamboat vs. Beefcake from 5/26/85 (included on the Steamboat Coliseum Video).

[ohtani's jacket]

Cheers, I'll check out that Beefcake/Steamboat match once I'm done with this Tito stuff.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #20 -- "The Incredible" Hulk Hogan

 

This was awful. Hogan was by far the worst of the opponents I've watched. Just shit. Granted this was from 1980, but he was so ungainly and clueless in the ring.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #21 -- "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase

 

These two could've had a really good match had the WWF promoted really good matches in the late 80s, but I guess the closest we got was their 1988 Prime Time Wrestling bout. Decent TV match that's really just an excuse for Hercules to do a run in as this was during Herc's babyface turn where Dibiase bought his services as a slave. The other Tito/Dibiase match I watched was from 1992 but was a Sherri manager cam match. If I hear her mention her Teddy Bear one more time I think I'll scream.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #22 -- "The Mighty" Hercules

 

Their 1986 match takes place after The Honky Tonk Man has laid Tito out. Hercules spends most of the match working over Tito's knee before Tito makes a comeback and the Brain leaves the broadcasting booth to interfere. A difficult match to gauge anything from. I also saw a match they had from '91 but it was so boring I gave up.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #23 -- "The Narcissist" Lex Luger

 

This was all right. Nothing to write home about but Luger has had plenty of worse matches. I can't understand what the steel plate controversy had to do with a narcissist gimmick, though. Seemed like a stupid way to bring Luger in. I can't figure out why they didn't bring him in as a face.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #24 -- The Bolsheviks

 

This was a pair of separate matches -- a Nikolai Volkoff match from '87 and a Boris Zhukov from '89 -- but they might as well have been the same match. Tito went through his whole routine and took the matches seriously, which suggests he was a pro I guess, but singles matches against the Bolsheviks. Who watches these? Why were they uploaded? Crazy.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #25 -- The Honky Tonk Man

 

This was actually a lot of fun. I don't know how much HTM I could stomach on a regular basis, but I dug his schtick here. The match sort of ended just as I was getting into it, but for a match I thought would be awful this was a pleasant surprise. My favourite thing about it was Jimmy Hart telling the crowd if they didn't shut up HTM wouldn't sing for them tonight. Awesome.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #26 -- The Widowmaker

 

This was far from vintage Windham, but it was better than a kick in the teeth. They probably could've done a better job with the amount of time they had, but I wasn't expecting much. Windham didn't really fit the WWF formula that Tito liked to work and this was kind of a hybrid between a WCW TV match and Tito trying to do his thing, but at least that made it interesting. Lord Alfred Hayes kept fucking up and calling the Widowmaker Windham. I am really sick of Lord Alfred.

[Bix]

I doubt Alfred screwed up. The way they did things back then was Hennig/Taylor/Windham/Von Erich types to slowly transition to just their nickname.

[ohtani's jacket]

Yeah, it was me who fucked up. I watched his debut on Prime Time Wrestling and they called him "The Widowmaker" Barry Windham.

[Matt D]

I really like Tito vs Barry.

 

It was super back and forth but totally believable.

[ohtani's jacket]

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #27 -- "Ravishing" Rick Rude

 

I talked about their 1988 match in the Most Consistent, Most Hit and Miss thread that was the catalyst for this mini project. Their 2/89 match is a more drawn out houseshow version of the match minus the hot finish. It's an okay match but nothing special. Didn't see the correlation between the Tito match and the Warrior carry. I'm not convinced that Rude was really that great against anybody else but Warrior in the WWF.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #28 -- The Red Rooster/"Terrific" Terry Taylor

 

The first match was the Rooster's face turn from SNME after Bobby slapped him. Fun little match and a great angle. One thing I'll give the WWF credit for from this era was their ability to turn people heel or face. Their execution of character turns was generally outstanding. Taylor's not one of my favourites and had all the charisma of a plank of wood, but Bobby was so good at what he did that even the Rooster's turn was enthralling. Bobby's range was amazing when you think about it. The second match is from '92 and part of some WWF grudge match tape. Didn't know that El Matador and Terry Taylor had a grudge in '92? Neither did Sean Mooney but he sure tried to explain it.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #29 -- "Dr. D" David Schultz

 

Couple of short matches. Exactly what you'd expect from Schultz. Can't really recommend them in good faith, but they weren't bad.

 

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #30 -- Jerry "The King" Lawler

 

This was pretty much the Jerry Lawler Show with Tito along for the ride. It's a fun match if you'd into Jerry working the crowd, but a meaningless match Tito wise.

[Chess Knight]

I'm not convinced that Rude was really that great against anybody else but Warrior in the WWF.

Don't think much of his Roddy Piper stuff?