Chapter 1 - The Executioner vs Tito Santana

Welcome back to my blog of minimal information because I'm playing it in the style of "we only know what's happened in the past and only in the WWE bubble". If doing one blog per match wasn't niche enough then all my other tendencies are surely enough to drive you all away. Don't worry we will cover each wrestler, title and promotion as they come up, and I might even get to the NWA PPVs after (at time of writing) the 332 WWE PPVs and all their matches :/

So where did we leave off? The first match in WWE History was about to occur at the original WrestleMania PPV. We met all our commentators, interviewers and ring announcers.

Lord Alfred Hayes

Lord Alfred Hayes announces our participants and throws to Mean Gene for interviews with each wrestler.

First Up....

TITO SANTANA

Tito joined the WWF in 1979 where he had success in the tag ranks including a six month title reign as champ. He left a year later for about 3 years before returning as a strong singles competitor which included a mid card title run and a feud for that title right up until this match although he lost the title (stuff like not mentioning the titles name is probably annoying but I will get there...one day) a few months before WrestleMania.

Mean Gene says he knows nothing about Santana's opponent and so does Tito. Tito says his opponent may be big but he hasn't been in the big leagues. He says he has goals and nothing will stop him.

Tito Santana on the right

We then cut to an interview with his opponent...

THE EXECUTIONER

As I said earlier, Mean Gene and Tito don't really know anything about The Executioner, and neither do we. He's had one previous match for the company at a live event and so hes a relative unknown coming into this match and the event. Interesting.

Looking at the Executioner, I thought he might be the kind of wrestler who is completely silent and I think Mean Gene might of thought that too as he says something along the lines of " we wont find out much about..." before being interrupted by the Executioner who stutters his way through a promo. With his face covered by a mask and all black clothes, he just came across as the mysterious type especially as Tito and Mean Gene knew nothing about him but as soon as he spoke he changed my whole perception of him and it just didn't seem right. The Executioner says he's going to go after Tito's leg that was hurt by a previous opponent, Greg Valentine (we will get to him). Spoiler Alert....If he hadn't said this, I wouldn't of known Tito had a hurt leg....and I don't think he does.

The Executioner on the Left

THE BUILD UP

I'm pretty sure there was no build up here and that it was just thrown on the card with one job. For Tito to get the crowd excited to open the show.

THE EXECUTIONER VS TITO SANTANA

Howard Finkel introduces both wrestlers although The Executioners height and weight are unknown...despite the fact someone could of just asked this wrestler who definitely talks and seems to wear a mask for no reason.

Ding Ding. The Bell rings to start the match.

I'm not going to do a play by play because you know....just watch the match if you want that, however I will shout out my highlights that lead up to the matches final score.

Mid Dropick

• The match started pretty fast, sort of...I mean compared to my expectations of this era.
• Tito Santana hits an awesome dropkick which I certainty didn't expect in this era, maybe my expectations were set to low but forgive me, I was -3 years old at this point, my brain had not formed. Or maybe Tito is just a brilliant underrated wrestler...OR MAYBE I shouldn't say that, 1 move into the first match of 35 years of history.
• Tito dominates as Gorilla Monsoon says he (Tito) wants the title and is proving himself. He also says The Executioner is disappointing. 
• Tito has Executioner backed up against the turnbuckle and is threatening to hit him and the crowd are just going wild. Again, I have nothing to judge this against but Tito seems to be massively over with the crowd. They love him and it's strange to see the crowd going wild for such a simple spot.
• As I was taking notes, Gorilla says "Ring my bell". I don't know what context that was in and I didn't rewind to find out. Fun!
• After some back and forth action and a few rest holds Tito hits The Executioner with a flying forearm which is another fast cool looking move. Love it.
• Straight from the flying fore arm, Tito locks in a figure four leg lock to make The Executioner quit whilst also sending a message to Greg Valentine who also uses the move.

And your winner. Tito Santana. So much for the undefeated Executioner. 

Figure Four Leg Lock

4 POINTS

I'm going to give the match 4 points. What that means right now, I do not know. It's going to be hard to really understand my point system until quite a few matches are in their and we can compare but right now this is the best match of all time. So it has that going for it. It did feel like this whole thing was more of a Tito showcase to help highlight his feud with Greg Valentine who we haven't met yet but keeps getting name dropped. I don't know what people generally thought of this match at the time but I thought it was a great start to the show and was pretty impressed by Tito. Executioner, not so much. His promo was awkward and strange and he didn't really do anything in the ring to impress, but I guess he did his job of making Tito look great. Hopefully it was worth it and we get some Tito vs Greg Valentine in the future...we will see.

The Executioner was never seen in the WWF again. However the man behind the mask, Buddy Rose featured on WWF TV throughout 1990 in his own name but pretty much lost every match. His retirement match was in 2005 and he sadly died in April 2009 of natural causes. After only 1 match we already have our first final appearance.

The Executioner -
Final Points - 2 (half of his only match total)
Best Match - 4 Points vs Tito Santana at WrestleMania (his only match)

Tito Santana will return at the next PPV and we will find out everything in between then.

TOP OF THE POPS

Top Wrestlers -
Tito Santana - 7 Points (5 for a win and 2 for 1/2 the match points)
The Executioner - 2 Points

Top Matches -
Tito Santana vs The Executioner at WrestleMania -  4 Points

Let's see who's up next as we head back to Lord Alfred Hayes...