Merced Solis (born May 10, 1953) 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. He is best known from his time in the World Wrestling Federation. Despite his Mexican heritage, he rarely competed in lucha libre promotions, being more accustomed to the American style of professional wrestling. Competing almost exclusively in the WWF from 1979 to 1993, Solis helped bridge the gap between the 1980s "Rock 'n Wrestling Connection" era to the 1990s "New Generation" era.
He had his first taste of WWF success in 1979 when he teamed with Ivan Putski to defeat Johnny Valiant and Jerry Valiant for the WWF Tag Team Championship at Madison Square Garden in October 1979. The duo would hold the titles for close to six months before losing to the Wild Samoans in April 1980.
In 1983, he engaged in a lengthy feud with Intercontinental Champion Magnificent Don Muraco. Santana finally won the title on February 11, 1984, becoming the first Mexican American wrestler to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. He quickly entered into a feud over the Intercontinental Championship with Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. Valentine captured it from Santana in September 1984 in London, Ontario. Soon after, Valentine injured Santana's knee and put Santana out of action for several months.
Santana returned at WrestleMania, and in the opening match defeated a masked wrestler known as The Executioner. Santana and Valentine went on to wrestle a memorable series of singles and tag team matches with neither gaining the upper hand. They wrestled in a variety of different types of matches such as regular title matches, No Disqualification matches, and Lumberjack matches.
In July 1985, Tito Santana regained the Intercontinental Title in a steel cage match in Baltimore, Maryland. 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 repeatedly 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 seven 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 led to a series of rematches where Savage intentionally got 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.
Between 1985 and 1987, Santana would also feud with Terry Funk, Dory Funk, Jr., and Butch Reed.
In August 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 the titles until WrestleMania IV in March 1988 where they lost 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 their WrestleMania match against the Brain Busters (Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson), Martel turned on Tito during the match, leaving Tito to face both opponents alone. His feud with the newly heel Martel would last throughout 1989, with both men on opposing teams at both SummerSlam and Survivor Series and Santana defeating Martel in the finals of the 1989 King of the Ring tournament.
After the Ultimate Warrior won the WWF Championship from Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VI and vacated the Intercontinental Title, Santana took part in an eight-man tournament to name a new Intercontinental Champion. Santana made it to the finals, where he lost to Mr. Perfect. Following that loss, Santana occasionally teamed with fellow undercard fan favorite, Koko B. Ware.
At the 1990 Survivor Series, he teamed with Nikolai Volkoff and The Bushwhackers; he was the winner and sole survivor in the elimination-style match against Sgt. Slaughter, Boris Zhukov, and The Orient Express. As a result, Santana advanced to the final elimination match, teaming with Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior against Martel, Ted DiBiase, the Warlord, and Power and Glory. Santana would eliminate the Warlord before being pinned by DiBiase.
Santana then adopted a Spanish bullfighter gimmick and the nickname "El Matador" in 1991. Under this gimmick, he faced Shawn Michaels in the opening bout of WrestleMania VIII at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana. Santana claims that at the time he was being considered for a run with the WWF Championship but says that the spot was given to Bret Hart; the WWF was considering expanding into South and Central America, and felt that having Santana, its most high profile Latino wrestler, as champion would aid its cause. The plan was eventually scrapped and the decision was made to expend into Canada, thus making the Canadian-born Hart a more viable option as champion. In any case, Santana wrestled under the "El Matador" gimmick through 1993, mostly as a jobber. In his final in-ring WrestleMania appearance, he defeated Papa Shango in the dark match of WrestleMania IX.
In his final appearance on WWF programming, Santana defeated friend and frequent tag team partner Virgil on a 1993 episode of Wrestling Challenge. As a sign of mutual respect between the two, both men embraced after the match. In 2004, Tito Santana was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Santana, along with only Hogan, holds the unique distinction of appearing in the first nine WrestleManias, accumulating a 2-7 record during that time.
An unlikely choice to usher in the era "extreme" in professional wrestling, Santana played an unlikely role in the formative years of ECW. Then known as Eastern Championship Wrestling, he won the ECW Heavyweight Championship in August 1993 by defeating former WWE rival Don Muraco but forfeited the championship later that year to Shane Douglas.
On January 10, 2000, Tito Santana made a one time appearance in WCW. He defeated Jeff Jarrett in a Dungeon Match on WCW Monday Nitro. His list of accomplishments and Championships (according to Wiki) are as follows:
American Wrestling Federation
AWF Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
Eastern Championship Wrestling
ECW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)1**
International World Class Championship Wrestling
IWCCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA Western States Sports
NWA Western States Tag Team Championship (1 time) with Ted DiBiase
Northern States Wrestling Alliance
NSWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
PWI Tag Team of the Year award in 1979 with Ivan Putski.
PWI ranked him # 70 of the 100 best tag teams during the PWI Years with Rick Martel in 2003.
Renegade Wrestling Alliance
RWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
USA Pro Wrestling
USA Pro Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
World Wrestling Federation | World Wrestling Entertainment
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2004)
WWF Intercontinental Championship (2 times)
WWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) with Ivan Putski (1) and Rick Martel (1)
WWF King of the Ring (1989)
Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame
Class of 2007
Other titles
CWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
EWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
GWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
IAW Television Championship (1 time)
NWC Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
UCW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
USA Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
UWS Tag Team Championship (1 time)
HoPWF Tag Team Championship (1 time)
NOTE: Title win and reign are not officially recognized by World Wrestling Entertainment.
