Tito Santana recently spoke with WrestleZone and talked about how he became known as “chico” thanks to Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Santana praised Ventura for helping him in his career and explained how he first made the connection of where the phrase came from in relation to his career.
“He was a great heel and he happened to like working with me in the ring. Whenever somebody that popular would knock you in the ring as a babyface he was actually helping your career. I would arrive at the different arenas and the fans were calling me ‘Hey, chico!’ And for some reason—I don’t know if you remember the series, Chico and The Man. But it kind of would upset me and I’d think ‘Why are they calling me chico?’” Santana said. “Then one Saturday morning I was away somewhere and I happened to have the TV on and Jesse came on, and our show came on, and I heard Jesse calling me ‘chico’ when he’s doing the commentating on my match and I said, ‘Ah! So this is where the fans were getting it from!’ And then I had a different perspective why the fans were calling me ‘chico.’”
Santana also agreed that something like that might not be received as well as it was back then, noting that times have changed. He added that it’s not just professional wrestling, but many topics today result in an argument instead of being able to have a discussion.
“You got to be very careful of what you do and what you say and it’s a different time. I just think that everybody is so ready to jump at an opportunity to shoot people or make some money or just start an argument. It’s a different world and not a world that I really care too much for. I think people used to be able to get along better back then, better than we’re experiencing nowadays. This is a hot topic,” Santana explained. “I remember being able to discuss politics if you had different opinions and now you can’t discuss politics. You just can’t do it.”
Check out our full interview with Tito Santana at the top of this post. The next ‘80s Wrestling Virtual Signing will feature former WWF World Champion SGT. SLAUGHTER on Monday, October 19th. Former WWF World Tag Team Champions DEMOLITION will appear on Monday, November 16th, and Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine (aka The Dream Team) will appear on Monday, December 14. We are also already working on our 2021 schedule. On Monday, January 11th we will have “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and former WWF announcer Craig DeGeorge joins us for a super rare signing on Monday, February 15th. Tickets will be on sale for these two events in the upcoming weeks.
For all info on these events and to join the mailing list for upcoming events contact [email protected]
