Tito Santana

Tito Santana

In the 1980's, Mission's Tito Santana found fame on the biggest professional wrestling stage on the planet. As the WWF Intercontinental Champion, Santana toured across the nation, having great matches with men like Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and Randy "Macho Man" Savage. As he found success with his flying forearm smash, one may ask themselves, where did the man who was billed from "Tocula, Mexico" really come from?

Merced Solis or "Tito Santana" was born on May 10, 1953, in Mission, TX. Like many people in the Valley at the time, he was raised in a family of migrant farm-workers. 

"Being a migrant worker, we lived on the wrong side of the track," Santana said. "I had real low self-esteem 'cause I knew my parents were not educated and we were poor." 

At Mission High School, Santana participated in track, basketball and football. When he graduated in 1971, he went on to play football as a tight end, on a scholarship he received for West Texas State. Two of his teammates would also end up becoming well-known professional wrestling stars — National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) star Tully Blanchard and World Wrestling Federation (WWF) star Ted Dibiase. 

Tully, son of San Antonio professional wrestling promoter Joe Blanchard, tried to convince Santana into giving this hybrid-form of sport and entertainment a shot.  

"At the time, I had no interest in wrestling," Santana said. "Football was my first love."

After he graduated from West Texas State, Santana signed on to be a part of the Kansas City Chiefs' training camp. 

"I was there ten weeks, as a matter of fact, I started every pre-season game. Then I got cut. Then I went to Canada and I ended up playing the rest of the season in Canada."

Santana was playing for the BC Lions and continued to be a part of that team for the following season. After that stint was over, he had some free time and stayed at the Blanchard family house in San Antonio. He got his first taste of professional wrestling by refereeing a few matches for their Southwest Championship Wrestling promotion. Tully was making plans to head to Florida, to train and perform there. After finally being convinced, Santana took a risk and tagged along with him as they took off from Texas. They arrived in Tampa on New Years Eve 1977. 

Santana started training under well-known professional wrestling coach Hiro Matsuda. 

"Once I started working out, I realized wrestling was a lot harder than [I thought]. For [Tully] it was easy 'cause he was around it all his life. I wasn't even a wrestling fan so I had to crawl before I was able to get in to the ring. It took me a while. It was tough, it wasn't a cakewalk getting started." 

After he completed his training, he wasn't so sure if wanted to continue. He was struggling financially and was having trouble finding any working opportunities. He considered going back to the BC Lions until he ran into former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Terry Funk. 

Funk, an alumni of West Texas State, would often visit his Alma Mater when Santana was practicing football there.

"He really liked me. He came in as the [NWA] world champion, he was the heel (bad guy). I was in the dressing room with the good guys. He sent for me and he asked me how I was liking it. I said, 'Terry, I really enjoy it but I'm not making any money.'"

It didn't take long for Funk to help out the young kid from Mission. 

"He talked to Eddie Graham, who was the owner of Florida Championship Wrestling. Then I started getting a few bookings. At least making some money to buy food, pay the rent, and before I know it, they set up for me to move to Atlanta, Georgia with a different promotion. Things took off after that."

For a brief time, Santana worked under the name "Richard Blood", which was professional wrestling star Ricky Steamboat's real name. After working in Georgia, he went to North Carolina and then headed down to the Amarillo territory, which was owned by the Funk family. He wrestled under his real name there. 

Shortly after his arrival, the territory was sold to Blackjack Mulligan and Dick Murdoch. Santana said that he wasn't pleased with the two new owners.

Luckily for Santana, he caught a big break. 

"Andre The Giant came into the town. I had befriended Andre the Giant, when I was in Atlanta, I picked him up at the airport. I'd always hang out with Andre, whenever he was in town. Andre took a film of one of my matches, he was on his way to New York and he showed it to Vince McMahon Sr. Before I knew it, I was wrestling in New York." 

When he got to New York, meaning the WWF, he got the name he would forever be associated with. Where did the name come from?

"There used to be a guy in Mission, as a matter of fact, his name was Santana. He ended up getting shot, he was a drug-dealer but I knew the name. So Vince [Sr.] asked me to think of a name, I told him that I liked 'Santana'. And he liked it. And he's the one that gave me 'Tito'." 

It didn't take long before Santana found success in the WWF. He won the WWF World Tag Team Championship with Ivan Putski, by defeating The Valiant Brothers on October 22, 1979.

"I got pretty lucky, my career moved up pretty fast. To become a champion and walk into Madison Square Garden with the tag team belts was an unbelievable feeling. For somebody that came from Mission, to be wrestling in front of twenty-four thousand people was unbelievable." 

After losing the titles to The Wild Samoans on April 12, 1980, Santana took off to Japan before becoming a part of the AWA in Minnesota. Santana is very pleased with his time there and is happy that he got to work with great wrestlers like Nick Bockwinkel and Sgt. Slaughter. 

"In New York we used to wrestle three-hundred fifty days a year. In Minnesota, you'd work about two-hundred days a year. You'd make good money, you almost lived like a normal human being with days off. It was really great." 

He eventually returned to the WWF in 1983 and was now working under Vince McMahon Jr. After a few months, on February 11, 1984, he defeated Don Muraco to become the WWF Intercontinental Champion. 

In 1984 and 1985, he developed a legendary feud with Greg Valentine over that championship. It all started when he lost the title to Valentine on September 24, 1984. That led to a storyline that focused on Santana chasing after Valentine, hoping to get revenge and his title back.

"I think the reason it got over so big was because I legitimately got surgery on my knee," Santana said. "Then we get in the ring and both of us worked so hard, we had a lot of pride and we beat the heck out of each other. People believed our matches." 

The rivalry with Valentine proved to be a big draw in the mid-1980's. 

"We sold out Madison Square Garden without Hulk Hogan on the card," Santana said. "We battled in the ring and they saw it. We were good wrestlers, we had good ring psychology." 

The feud climaxed in a cage match on July 6, 1985 in Baltimore. When asked what his favorite pro wrestling memory is, Santana picked this match, where he defeated Valentine to start his second reign as Intercontinental Champion. 

"That was the biggest pop, it was such a successful match," Santana said of this memorable cage match. 

The following year, Santana lost the title to Randy "Macho Man" Savage on February 8, 1986 in Boston. A few months later, the two had a bout in Toronto — on May 4, 1986 — that ranks as one of the best WWF matches of the decade. 

"It was good, we had very good chemistry together. We had known each other for a long time. We were together in Atlanta in 1977 when I first started. Randy was a very hard worker, that's why he went on to become real famous." 

In 1987, he became part of the Strike Force tag team with Rick Martel, and they won the tag team titles from the Hart Foundation on October 27, 1987. They ended up losing the titles to Demolition at WrestleMania IV on March 27, 1988. 

The Strike Force team split up on April 2, 1989, at WrestleMania V, when Martel turned on Santana during a match against The Brainbusters (Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson). Santana found himself as a singles performer once again. His biggest moment of the year was at the King of the Ring, which took place on October 14, 1989. In one night, Santana went on to defeat Bad News Brown (Allen Coage), The Warlord, Akeem the African Dream and Martel to win the 16-man King of the Ring tournament. 

In 1990, his highlights were his tilts with Mr. Perfect in the Intercontinental Title tournament finals and on NBC's Saturday Night's Main Event. 

He was then given a bullfighter gimmick in 1991 and renamed "El Matador". Santana isn't too fond of that time period. 

"I didn't care for it because they didn't push it. They told me they were going to push [the new character change] and then they didn't push it. They lied to me." 

Then, in 1992, Santana explains that the company was thinking of expanding into Mexico and South America, and using him as a way to break into that Spanish-speaking market. 

"They told me that they were going to be doing that, they were considering me for the [WWF] World Championship belt," Santana said. "Instead they went real heavy into Canada and that's when they decided to go with Bret "Hitman" Hart [as WWF World Champion]." 

After being passed over for a main event title run, Santana worked a low-profile role until he left the company after defeating Damien Demento on August 13, 1993. He has spent a limited amount of time on the independent circuit, working on his own terms and schedule. In the late 1990's, he came back for a stint as the WWF's Spanish broadcast color commentator but that didn't last long. 

In 2004 and 2007, he was inducted into both the WWE Hall of Fame and the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame. He now resides in Roxbury Township, NJ, where he owns Santana's Hair Salon and teaches Spanish at a local middle school in the area.

While his home is thousands of miles away, his Valley roots are still strong. His relatives and best friend still live in this area. He has made several public appearances in the Valley on local independent pro wrestling events over the past decade. 

He strongly feels that his time here in the Valley and working in the fields played a major role in all the success he's had in his life. 

"There's no doubt in my mind that how hard we worked as migrants, I developed a great work ethic. I think its what made me successful and not blowing my money on drugs and stuff. 'Cause I realized how hard as a young person, [me] and my entire family worked for every dime that we had."

Carlos Moreno, Jr.

Carlos Moreno, Jr. 

Carlos Moreno, Jr., local PSJA High School graduate, has been carving away at the rock for 25 years and has been having a lot of success as of late in Hollywood. It hasn't always been easy, and he's had a lot of obstacles he's had to overcome over the past three decades. When it's all said and done, he's hoping to have successfully establish himself as a legend, both locally and beyond.

Carlos Moreno, Jr. was born in McAllen on December 20, 1971. His father was Tejano star Carlos Moreno, who was known for his group Carlos Moreno y La Semilla. That group's most popular song was the hit "Hello Baby Doll". Moreno, Jr. was influenced by his dad's dedication to his craft.

"I grew up around my dad," Moreno, Jr. said. "You work with him, you hang around with him, and it catches on. You hear a song start from the beginning to the end. How do they do that? I got to see them play (often)."

While he was most known for his Tejano music, work in the music industry wasn't consistent. So the family would travel north to work on the fields.

"We would work in the fields, up in Michigan," Moreno, Jr. said. "We would go to Michigan for years. So I would have to study really hard."

At the time, he was into acting but it wasn't something he really considered. Moreno, Jr. entered PSJA High School, and was briefly interested in politics. Finally in 10th grade, he became interested in the thespian group. He applied but he was told "No" due to being a migrant student.

"So there was a man I complained to," Moreno, Jr. said. "I can't remember his name. He complained to the school board (on my behalf). The next thing you know, they created a special class for migrant kids that wanted to take drama classes at PSJA High. But we weren't allowed to participate with the thespians, it was just a special drama class for us."

According to Moreno, Jr., the teacher's name was Mr. Gomez and they only had this class for one year. He graduated and then went to a university to study political science. In his sophomore year, he took an acting class and got the bug again.

"I said, 'Oh no, I like this thing,'" Moreno, Jr. said. "The only problem was that I had a hard time. There wasn't a lot of Latinos in the university, at the drama department. So again I felt like, 'Oh no, I'm a migrant worker, I'm a second banana.'"

He kept at it, continuing his acting at the university, but Moreno, Jr. describes his time there as being difficult.

"Nobody wanted to do scenes with me," Moreno, Jr. "Eventually I felt bad and I told my counselor that I'm going to move to L.A."

Luck came his way soon after that conversation with the counselor at the university.

"Eventually, a production company came to Santa Fe. I had a teacher, who was teaching me, and I auditioned. I got the job!"

He was in his early 20's, and was now a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

"Everybody was like, 'You joined the union?' I was like, 'Yeah.'"

Due to finding work in film, he didn't have time to attend school, so he had to leave the university. He then also became a backup vocalist for his dad.

"I tried it," Moreno, Jr. said about recording and going on tour with his dad's Tejano band. "But it wasn't what I expected. So I got the money I made from the film, and I moved to L.A."

He worked as an extra in several different programs but it was tough for him to find success early on.

"I knew when I got there it was going to be hard. Because if it was hard for me to get an acting class at PSJA High, if it was hard getting scenes at a university, then they kicked me out for doing what they told me to do, and I didn't get my degree, so could you imagine how hard Hollywood is going to be? It's going to be the toughest thing. But guess what bro? I was ready to go, I was ready for the long run, I'm going to figure it out."

Moreno, Jr. says his parents and family kept supporting him and encouraging him to stay there. He started getting minor roles and he met Milton Katselas, an acting teacher who would become his mentor.

"I am a short morenito (dark-skinned man), so it's hard, difficult for someone like me to get really consistent work. The struggle, the tears, I was homeless for a while. I had to live in my car. Then I got into a car accident with a friend."

As the years passed by, Moreno, Jr. started getting more and more roles as he continued to fight on. In 2007, he got a small role in Transformers. He kept getting more and more work, including roles on television shows like Community, The Bridge and Dexter.

In 2016, he appeared in the film Frank & Lola, which stars Michael Shannon. Recently he  also did a TV pilot called Mad Dog for Amazon Prime.

Moreno, Jr. is starting to see 2016 as a potential breakout year for him, and hopes to one day be able to do for others, what his mentor, Katselas did for him.

"I'm hoping this is the catalyst for my next step," Moreno, Jr. "I think I'm ready."

Remembering Antonio Orendain

REMEMBERING ANTONIO  ORENDAIN!

By Benito Gonzalez and Manuel Torres, 4/13/16.

The first time that we met Antonio Orendain was in 1966. Orendain and some other organizers from the United Farm Workers (UFW) had come to talk to the farmworkers at the Weslaco labor camp, to unite the workers with others in Starr county. Orendain was the man with the black hat, as he was known then. The Valley, for the farmers and ranchers, was the “Magic Valley”. They would make huge profits from the crops that they planted like onions, tomatoes, melons, oranges, grapefruits, and many others. But for us, who work the land and harvest the crops, it was the “Valley of Tears”. That’s how Antonio would explain to the farmworkers, that we too had to put a price to our labor. Just like anybody else in the world, that we too are professional, like a doctor, or a lawyer.  And with that, he started his legend. From there on, the farmworkers were not afraid of being united as a group. Even further, Antonio and the union here understood that here in the border, we have to organize with immigrant workers. “The workers from Mexico are not our enemy.”

So every morning, we would get up at 4 AM and pass out flyers to the farmworkers at the Hidalgo bridge, where they would cross in the hundreds. The key to winning any strike or work stoppage was to organize the undocumented immigrant worker. After so many years of educating and organizing farmworkers on both sides of the border, they started to look up to Antonio and the Texas Farmworkers Union (TFWU). Whenever there were some problems with the crew leaders or the packing sheds owner, you could hear “Huelga! Huelga! Huelga!”

In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, hundreds of thousands of onion workers clipped onions in the fields throughout the Valley. At nighttime the workers would go looking for the TFWU office, looking for help from the organization and Antonio. One night a plan was formed with TFWU organizers, with Antonio as the lead organizer. It was agreed that the main reason that workers wanted to carry out a work stoppage was because they were not making the minimum wages of $1.25 per hour. Their pay was .25 cents a bucket (5 gallons), or .50 cents for a sack of 100 lbs. They also asked for use of bathrooms and clean drinking water.

That was one of the hundreds of strikes and work stoppages organized by the TFWU, here in Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy counties back in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s, besides the ones in West Texas, Pecos, Plainview, Muleshoe. Times have changed ever since NAFTA, with so much agricultural work moving south into Mexico and in other southern countries.

The legend of Antonio Orendain will live forever, and his goals of seeing a just society, where every farmworker is paid equally, treated fairly, and lives comfortably in a happy economy and political system for all. RIP our friend, our general, the struggle continues! A new movement is growing for a new world!

February Round-Up

This week, we're going to have a round-up of some of the most anticipated Tejano, conjunto, and lucha libre shows and events of the month of February.

--This past week, La Lomita Park de Pepe Maldonado in McAllen released their schedule of the popular conjunto acts that will be stopping by in the month of February. The line up of artists is as follows: Riley y Los Gilitos and Los Delta Boyz (2/7), Los Fantasmas del Valle (2/14), Pepe Maldonado and Los Nuevo Chachos de Jesse Gomez (2/21), Ruben de la Cruz y su conjunto and Los Tremendos Alacranes de David Flores (2/28). Entry fee is $10.00, and the music starts at 6 PM every Sunday night. For more information on these upcoming events, you can visit https://www.facebook.com/lalomitapark?fref=ts or call La Lomita Park owner and promoter Pepe Maldonado at 956-867-8783.

--The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center (NMCAC) of San Benito will be having "A Romantic Evening of Poetry with Julieta Corpus" on Friday, February 12, at 7 PM. Julieta Corpus is a poet whose works has been featured in several publications, including the Festiva. Also, Edward Vidaurre will be reading, along with some music by Mario Mora. Donations are being accepted at the event, and the works of Corpus and Vidaurre will be on sale as well. At this same location, NMCAC will also be having their monthly Thursday "Conjunto Nites at the Chicho" event on February 18, with a soon to be announced artist. For information and details on these presentations, contact coordinator Soledad A. Núñez at 956-244-0373.

--Salinas Promotions returns to Los Portales Pulga in Mission on Friday, February 5, at 7:30 PM.  The main event will be Big Neurosis and Corazon de Barrio vs Silencio and Orquidia Negra, while the co-main event will feature Hijo de Monster, Mini Chucky and Psicosis Jr. vs Asterisco Jr., Temblor, and Temblor Jr. There will also be two other matches in the undercard. Pre-sale ticket prices are $15.00 for adults, $10.00 for children. The prices go up $5.00 at the door. For more information, call 956-457-9828.

--Jaime y Los Chamacos will be stopping by at the Gaslight Club in McAllen on Saturday, February 6. The cover before 9 PM will be $10.00, after that time, it'll be $15.00. Door will open at 7 PM.

--Attorney and promoter R. Bruce Tharpe, of Brownsville, TX, has been adding more and more professional wrestling gems to his NWAClassics.com streaming service. In the past two weeks, a Jose Lothario vs Hector Guerrero brawl from May 25, 1984, and a Terry Funk vs Mark Lewin scrap from April 27, 1979, were unearthed from the archives. Two totally different, but excellent matches between four great professional wrestlers. Check them out if you're a fan of old school, territorial professional wrestling.