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WWE Hall of Famer Tito Santana took part in a Q&A yesterday as part of The Gathering in Charlotte, NC. Some highlights:.
Getting the Tito Santana ring name:
"Well, I was wrestling in Amarillo. Dick Murdoch and Blackjack Mulligan had bought the territory from the Funks. And I was wrestling as Merced Solis because that's where I played football and people knew me as Merced Solis. So before you know it, Andre the Giant took a film of one of my matches. He was there in Texas wrestling in the same territory, and he was on his way to New York, so I didn't know this. He asked Mario Savoldi, who was working in the office, and he brought a film to Vince McMahon. Before you know it, I'm coming to New York. So I meet with Vince, and he says, "I want you to think of a catchy name, 'cause it's pretty hard for 20,000 people to go, 'Mer-ced! Mer-ced!'" You know, it just doesn't work! So in my hometown in Mission, Texas where I grew up, there was a guy with the last name Santana, and I liked the last name Santana, you know, there was a group, Santana. And I told Vince, I said, "I like Santana." And so he says, "Okay, we're going to call you Tino—T-I-N-O—Tino Santana." And I said, "Call me whatever you want, cause I'm just happy to be here." So I go and do my first wrestling match. They introduce me as Tino Santana, I sign a few autographs, "Tino Santana." And I come back after my match, and Vince McMahon, both of them, the father and the son, were standing right when I came into the dressing room, and he says, "From now on, you're going to be Tito Santana." And that's how I got my name."
Asking Vince McMahon if he should use steroids:
"I did ask him about steroids. I was always an athlete, so I always looked pretty decent, you know, not much different than what I look now. But I looked like an athlete. So I was the Intercontinental Champion, and I said, "Vince, I see all these guys all jacked up," and I said, "Do you want me to get on steroids?" He says, "Tito, I'm the one that decides what's going to happen in your career. You don't have to do anything." And Tony Atlas walked by, he says, "If he wants to destroy his own body, you know, that's his choice." He says, "I don't tell anybody to take, you know... I decide who I'm going to push." But all of a sudden, it seemed like he was just pushing guys that were all jacked up. Thank God that he continued to use me pretty good, you know, without being jacked up."
How Strike Force came to be and what the original planned name for the team was:
"I don't know if you guys remember, Rick Martel was teamed up with Tom Zenk first. The Can-Am Connection or something. They supposedly... I don't know, but the rumors that I heard was Vince didn't pay everybody the same. You know, if you were partners, Martel had been in the business many, many more years than Tom Zenk. So I think Tom Zenk found out that Rick was making more money than him, so he just got up and left. So then Vince came up to me and he says, "Tito, do you mind... I'd like to team you up with Rick Martel." And, you know, they weren't doing anything with me, so I said, "Yeah, that's an opportunity for me," and I said, "Sure." He says, "We'd like to call you the Border Patrol." He says, "You're from South Texas, he's from Montreal, you know, the borders from the North and South." So at that time, there had been some Mexicans or from South America that were trying to come across on those train... what do you call those, the railroad cars, the train cars? And in Arizona it was so hot, a lot of them died, you know, in the heat of heat exhaustion. So I told Vince, I said, "Vince, I don't think that would be a good name for us, I think you'd be turning us heel, I said, because there's Mexicans that are dying in the cars." So he said, "You got a point." So then he came back and he says, "Oh, you guys are going to be the Strike Force." And I said, you know, "Call me whatever you want, you know, I'm just happy to be getting an opportunity."
The Gathering continues all weekend in Charlotte, NC. For more, visit www.TMartPromotions.com.
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