He asked Vince if he could be the heel after Strike Force broke up
On the In The Front Row podcast, Tito Santana explained that when Strike Force came apart, he made a pitch directly to Vince McMahon. He had spent his entire career as a babyface and wanted to flip.
“You remember when me and Rick split up? Rick was going to come back. And I asked Vince. I said, Vince was going to do something with with us so he can come back. I said, Can I be the heel? And Vince says, No, I still got some things I want to do with you. He says, Rick’s going to be the heel.”
He thought he was a better worker than the guys turning heel
Santana said he had been studying heels his entire career and felt confident he could pull off the switch.
“That was my I wanted to, you know, because I saw a lot of guys that I knew I had a better grip on our business, and I had listened to the heels. I had listened so I figured I was a better worker than a lot of these heels that were there that had transitioned from baby face to heel. And they did it. I said, if they can do it, I know I can do it, and I wanted to give it a shot.”
He even had a vision for the kind of heel he would have been.
“You know, I would have probably been a heel, like Mr. Perfect or Mr. Wonderful, you know, you know that type of a heel. But he said, No, I’m not done with you as a baby face.”
Strike Force was washing knee pads in the sink at midnight
Santana said the Strike Force run was not nearly as glamorous as the WWF presented it on television. He shared a story of being on the road with Rick Martel.
“I remember when we wrestling in Detroit, and I was with Rick Martel strike force we come back from we were staying in Detroit by the airport, and we came back from, I think, Lansing, Michigan at midnight, and we used to have white trunks and white knee pads. And so we used to wash our white stuff, because they would get so dirty in the ring. And if you didn’t wash them at night, you know, you couldn’t clean them. So it was midnight, and me and Rick are in the sink washing our knee pads and and then we’d hang, you know, to make sure that we were clean. You know, the next day, I said, yeah, look at the superstars, you know, bringing in the year, you know, washing their own clothes here in the sink.”
Marriage on the road meant calls home every single night
Santana said the road life was hardest on his family. He got married in 1980 or 1981, and the WWF schedule meant being gone for every major holiday.
“I hated, I hated being away from home, missing, missing birthdays, missing anniversaries, missing my wife’s, you know, our anniversaries. You know it missing Christmas, you know, because we were always entertaining. Christmas was a big day. New Year’s Eve was a big day. All the holidays we were entertaining, and I was away from home. I hated that.”
He had a system to stay connected with his three sons.
“I used to call home. And back then, you know, phone we didn’t have cell phones. I make, I make sure I call home. And one, one phone call, I had to speak to all my three boys. I had three boys, and one was just for my wife. And I always, always would check in at night when I got back from the arena.”
Strike Force formed in August 1987 and won the WWF Tag Team Championship from The Hart Foundation on October 27, 1987 in Syracuse, New York. They held the titles for 152 days before losing to Demolition at WrestleMania IV on March 27, 1988. Rick Martel turned heel on Santana at WrestleMania V on April 2, 1989, abandoning him during a match against The Brain Busters and going on to become “The Model.” Santana defeated Martel in the final of the 1989 King of the Ring tournament. Mr. Perfect, real name Curt Hennig, died on February 10, 2003 at age 44. Santana’s three sons are named Matthew, Michael, and Mark, and he has been married to his wife Leah for over 40 years.
You can click below to watch the full interview.