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TITO SANTANA INTERVIEW ONLINE |
 Fresh off our news making interview with "Nature
Boy" Ric Flair, The Interactive Interview is back and better than ever. We've
got a knack for making things better! Whoops, wrong speech!
This week, James and Dan present a packed show. First,
we welcome the inoperable WWE Hall of Fame superstar, Tito Santana to the
program with a fantastic interview most classic wrestling fans will love
hearing. Then, we bring you our third "Stump the Host" segment where James
faces an opponent with the prize being a copy of Legends of Wrestling, Showdown!
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NOTE: This and all interviews are in Real Audio format. If you do
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"EL MATIDOR" TITO
SANTANA
-- James starts the show off by informing every one of
the latest "Phrase that Pays" sound to listen for, a clip from Tesla's "Modern
Day Cowboy." After that brief intro, an audio package on Tito Santana's career
airs followed by a few sound clips of "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels'
introduction for Tito at the 2004 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony.
-- Tito then joins the show. James, who flies solo on
this interview, thanks Tito for joining him.
-- Since leaving the mainstream wrestling business, Tito
has started to teach Spanish in a middle school. He and his wife also have
opened a hair salon in Rocksberry, New Jersey. James mentions they give good
hair cuts as he attended the grand opening of the salon in 1997.
-- Tito played college football with another former TII
guest who you can still hear in our archives, Tully Blanchard. Tully's father
was a promoter in San Antonio. Well, they talked him into "giving it a shot."
Tito thought he'd just wrestle on the off season of professional football
but it turned out differently.
-- Tito once wrestled as Richard Blood. Richard Blood
is the real name of Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. Jim Barnette, the promoter
in Atlanta, had Steamboat at one point. Ricky had gone to Charlotte to wrestle
and became popular there. Barnette always liked the name Richard Blood and
thought he would put that name on his next star. So, Barnette asked Ricky
for permission to use the name and it was given to Tito. Tito was only 2
months in to the business and was not ready to be a star, by his own admission.
So, he never amounted to very much as Richard Blood.
-- Vince McMahon Sr. was different from all other promoters
because "he was a man of his word. That's the bottom line." Tito feels if
Vince Sr. told you something, it was the truth.
-- "It was the biggest break I had in professional wrestling
up until then," said Tito when asked about teaming with Ivan Putski. Tito
feels he was still young to the business at that point and feels Putski was
nice to him and always treated him well.
-- "God, it was probably one of the longest feuds in
the history of New York," said Tito when asked about his memorable feud with
Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. Tito talks very highly of working with Greg
and their trading of the Intercontinental championship. But, it wasn't all
fun and games working with Greg. "One thing about Greg ... When you were
in a match with him, you knew it. We used to go in there and deliberately
beat the crap out of one another."
-- "He was different," said Tito about "Macho Man" Randy
Savage. He feels Randy had a "lighter" style than Greg Valentine. Tito feels
he can adjust to all different styles.
-- "It was another high point of my career," says Tito
when asked about being Strike Force with partner Rick Martel. Tito was offered
to team with Martel after Tom Zenk, Martel's Can Am Connection tag partner,
"disappeared."
-- Upon comparing tag team and singles competition, Tito
has the following to say. "I hated relying on somebody else. When you're
by yourself, you live and die by what you do. When you have a partner, it's
like a marriage. You have to trust each other." James asks if he ever had
a problem with Martel and Tito says he never did.
-- "I never thought he was going to be as big as he did,"
said Tito when asked about Bret "The Hitman" Hart. "There are different ways
we all get breaks," says Tito. He feels Vince tried to use Bret to replace
Hulk Hogan as the top draw.
-- The show then goes to a brief commercial break letting
everybody know of TII's fantastic "Archives" area where you cannot only read
show overviews, much like this one, but also listen to all of TII's past
programs in streaming media.
-- James then spins a true blast from the past. Tito
Santana and Rick Martel's Strike Force theme off the Piledriver record called
"Girls in Cars." This could cause nightmares.
-- "It didn't take me long to figure out Vince didn't
have plans for El Matidor." Tito enjoyed the character for what it was and
made decent money with it but knew it wasn't going anywhere because there
was very little by way of merchandising. He mentions the action figure but
that was about all.
-- Why did Tito finally leave the WWF? "I wasn't happy.
I was spending a lot of time on the road pretty much breaking even. I had
experienced success. It was a very hard life to go up and down just to break
even. I had 3 kids and was married. I just got tired of being on the road
on my kid's birthdays and my wife's birthdays. I just decided I had enough.
I wasn't happy and luckily I had a wife who stood behind me and supported
me."
-- "I think Shawn (Michaels) has come a long way as a
person. He came in as a wild kid where he couldn't care less what anybody
thought about him. He did whatever he had to do to get ahead and he did it.
In the past few years, he's become a different person. He's made a complete
turn around."
-- When asked about Shawn's introduction of him, clips
of which heard early in the show, Tito says "It was very touching. I never
expected Shawn to say what he said. We didn't discuss what he was going to
talk about and to hear what he had to say made me feel good. I never knew
other wrestlers thought of me in that way."
-- Tito never defended the ECW World Title which he won
in a tournament because in the time after he won the belt, Paul E. Dangerously
(Heyman) took over. "I've never been a fan of his and he's probably never
been a fan of mine. And once I met him the first night, I knew I didn't want
to work for him again."
-- Tito Santana and Sgt. Slaughter were partial owners
of the AWF. They booked the shows and the talent. Tito was sad to see it
end the way it did. He feels they were given a bad time slot. The shows were
on CBS really early in the morning.
-- The AWF used a European style "round" system sort
of like boxing. James asks about it and Tito says, "I think we would've had
to get away from it. It don't think it would've worked. It had its good points.
Americans want to watch American football, not Canadian football. They didn't
want to watch European wrestling, they wanted American wrestling."
-- James asks Tito's opinion of World Championship Wrestling.
Tito says, "They didn't have a leader. They didn't have one person, like
Vince McMahon. They had a bunch of chiefs and nobody wanted to be Indians.
It was doomed. Someone had to think about other people and everybody was
thinking about themselves."
-- James asks if Tito has seen NWA TNA. Tito replies,
"I don't watch it."
-- Tito does not consider himself retired just yet. He
likes to wrestle once or twice a month. He feels the people still react well
to him and it gives him the chance to get away for a few days. That said,
he would not consider a return to work for Vince. He doesn't want to have
that hectic of a schedule.
-- "It was great. I didn't think I was going to feel
the way I did. It was very touching. I was surprised how the young wrestlers
showed respect and appreciation to us for being the ones who paved the road
for them and how wrestling is what it is because of us. I don't know if Vince
McMahon drilled that into them but every one of them said the same thing.
But, just seeing everyone, even Vince McMahon and his family, was a nice
feeling."
-- "Ric Flair is Ric Flair. I don't think he's at the
same level as Hulk Hogan but he's not far. I think the difference between
Ric Flair and me is I stopped being Tito Santana at home."
-- James then rolls into Word Associations giving Tito
names such as Ric Flair, Miss Elizabeth, Road Warrior Hawk, Jeff Jarrett,
Vince McMahon, and more!
-- After the interview, "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy
Hart leads James and Dan back for the recap to talk about a wide range of
topics including the Tito interview just conducted. They then discuss RAW,
Smackdown, the Total Nonstop Action pay per view, and Impact. Plus, hear
James' controversial opinion of the fans at the TNA Asylum!
-- We then roll into a commercial for this Wednesday's
Total Nonstop Action pay per view telecast followed immediately by "The First
Lady of Wrestling" Missy Hyatt introducing our "Stump the Host" segment for
a free copy of the new Legends of Wrestling video game for the Playstation
2 console! This is a fun segment full of inside jokes. The show closes as
James spins "Asylum #9" off the new WASP record called "The Neon God."
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