Tito Santana

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Merced Solis Flag of the United States
Statistics
Ring name(s) Tito Santana
El Matador
Billed height 6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
Billed weight 234 lb (106 kg)
Born May 10, 1953 (1953-05-10) (age 54)
Mission, Texas
Resides Roxbury Township, New Jersey
Billed from Toluca, Edomex
Debut 1976
Retired 1996

Merced Solis (born May 10, 1953)[citation needed] better known by his ring name Tito Santana, is a semi-retired American professional wrestler whose career spanned from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, best known from his time in World Wrestling Federation. Despite his Mexican heritage, he rarely competed in lucha libre promotions, being more accustomed to the American style of professional wrestling.

In WWF, Solis was the 1989 King of the Ring, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004.

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He worked briefly in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and the American Wrestling Association (AWA), but gained his fame by wrestling in the World Wrestling Federation.

In 1984, he feuded with the Magnificent Don Muraco for the Intercontinental Championship, which he won on February 11 (becoming the first-ever Mexican-American wrestler to have won the WWF Intercontinental Championship). He then entered into a feud over the Intercontinental Championship with Greg Valentine. Valentine captured it from Santana in September, 1984 in London, Ontario.

Tito returned at WrestleMania, and in the opening match defeated a masked wrestler known as The Executioner. Tito and Greg Valentine would go on to wrestle a memorable series of singles and tag team matches with neither gaining the upper hand. They would wrestle in a variety of different type of matches such as regular title matches, No Disqualification matches, and Lumberjack matches.

In July of 1985, Tito Santana regained the Intercontinental Title in a steel cage match in Baltimore. When both men tried to escape the cage, it appeared that the champ would retain his title; Tito went over the top while Valentine went through the door. However, Tito was in a position to kick the door closed into "the Hammer" as he tried to escape; he was able to climb to the floor and win the match. Valentine proceeded to throw a tantrum and smashed the title belt repeately into the cage, destroying it, which led to the creation of a new belt design that would remain until 1998. Santana held the title for another 7 months before losing it to "Macho Man" Randy Savage in a hard-fought match at the Boston Garden. Savage would win the title by hitting Santana with a foreign object, which would lead to a series of rematches where Savage would intentionally get himself disqualified in order to keep the belt. This resulted in a series of no-disqualification matches where Savage barely managed to escape with a win.

In late 1987, Tito Santana formed a tag team with former AWA World Champion Rick Martel named Strike Force. The team quickly won the Tag Team championship from the Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) in October. They successfully defended it until WrestleMania IV (March 1988) where they lost it to Demolition (Ax & Smash).

Due to a neck injury suffered by Martel shortly after WrestleMania, the team was inactive until WrestleMania V in 1989. In a match against the Brain Busters (Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson), Martel turned on Tito during the match, leaving Tito to face both opponents alone.

Santana remained a singles wrestler and feuded with Martel for a time. After the Ultimate Warrior won the WWF Championship from Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI (effectively vacating the Intercontinental Title) Santana took part in the tournament to name a new Intercontinental Champion. Santana made it to the finals, where he lost to Mr. Perfect. In an attempt to keep his career going, he later adopted a Spanish bullfighter gimmick and the nickname "El Matador" in 1992, which he wrestled under until leaving in 1993. He also faced Shawn Michaels in the opening bout of WrestleMania VIII at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of his final appearances on WWF programming was against Virgil on Wrestling Challenge which he won, following which the two embraced.

He won the ECW Heavyweight Championship in August 1993 by defeating Don Muraco but forfeited the championship later that year to Shane Douglas.

Tito's favorite finisher was the "The Flying Forearm Smash." The move was referred to as "The Mexican Hammer" while he was partnered with Ivan Putski (Putski's finisher was "The Polish Hammer"). It was later called "The Flying Jalapeno" by WWF color man Bobby Heenan (who, at times, also referred to the maneuver as "Extra Hot Paste Picante" and "El Salsa de So-So"), and later referred to mockingly by Jesse Ventura as "The Flying Burrito" (Ventura would also deliberately mispronounce Santana's name as 'Chico'). By the time Santana wrestled in the AWF, commentators appropriately referred to it as "The Flying Burrito" or simply "The Burrito."

As "El Matador" he added a variation of his forearm smash called "El Paso de la Muerte" (translated to English: "The Pass of Death", in reference to the killing blow of a bullfight). He would raise his arms as if holding a pair of banderillas (barbed sticks used to weaken a bull during a fight) and jab his hands into the opponents' shoulders. Tito would then bounce off the ropes and deliver a flying forearm to the back of his opponent's head.

In 1998, Tito also served as Spanish commentator alongside Carlos Cabrera and Hugo Savinovich at WrestleMania XIV in Boston.

Solis is now a Spanish teacher at Eisenhower Middle School in Roxbury Township, New Jersey where he lives with his wife Leah and their three sons Matthew, Michael, and Mark. His wife owns Santana's Hair Salon in Succasunna.

In 2004, Tito Santana was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame although he still makes occasional appearances for independent wrestling promotions.

1Title win and reign aren't officially recognized by World Wrestling Entertainment.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito_Santana"
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