A lost art

Hello all

One of this blog’s loyal followers sent me a message about last week’s blog. If you remember, last week I crowned John Cena “Mr. Pay per View”. This was because I have enjoyed (and think if you watch them, then you will too) many of Cena’s ppv matches, and think they have been very much worth the price of the ppv. This follower called me out and asked me, instead of highlighting Cena, or any of the new guys for the entire time I blog, at least once a week, I should blog about some old school wrestler. Well Mr. Proctor (Doc Proc) this blog is for you. Today I will blog about a lost art in pro wrestling. WWE has all but gone away from it. Even TNA hasn’t featured it like they used too. I am going to blog about my favorite tag team of all times: Strike Force.

Since a lot of you are new school wrestling fans, you probably think I am talking about the 2nd tier MMA organization, but no. Strike Force was a team back in WWE in the mid to late 90s. The team consisted of 2 guys I would hope you know. Two guys who were great singles wrestlers in their own right. These guys were Rick Martel and Tito Santana.
Martel started with the WWE in 1980. He formed a tag team with Tony Garera. They went on to win the WWE tag team titles late in 1980. The team defended those titles deep into 1980, until losing the titles to the Moondogs in March of 1981. After losing the belts, it took them more than 4 months to get those belts back. And they would keep them till October of that year, before losing the belts again. This team would never get the belts back, because Martel would move on to the AWA. In the AWA Martel would become a big singles star. In 1984 he would win the AWA World title. He would hold that belt for almost 2 years. He lost that belt and went back to the WWE. Back in WWE he formed another tag team, with Tom Zenk (some of you may remember him from his WCW days as the Z-man), which was called the Can-Am Connection. This team was mildly successful for about a year, till Zenk left for WCW. Martel was a singles wrestler would didn’t see many wins until he became one half of strike force.

Tito Santana also started his career in the WWE as a Tag team champion. In 1979 he and Ivan Putski won the titles in Madison Square Garden. This duo would keep the belts for six months before losing them to the Wild Samoans, in April of 1980. After this Santana was a singles competitor. He worked his way up the ranks for a few years. In 1983 he was engaged in a very lengthy feud with the Intercontinental Champion Don Muraco. These 2 would go back and forth for the title, until finally in February of ’84 Santana defeated Muraco for the I.C. title. The next feud Santana would have would be with Greg “The Hammer” Valentine. Valentine would beat Santana for the belt September of ’84. Santana and Valentine would fight back and forth for the title, with Santana finally winning it back in ’85. Santana would remain champion for 7 months before losing the belt to the late great Randy “Macho Man” Savage.

So now we have both guys who were great single competitors, and both former tag team champs, but in 1987 these two wrestlers went on to form my favorite tag team: Strike Force. They rose very quickly through the ranks. In October of ’87 they ended the 9 month title reign of the Hart Foundation.

The thing I loved about this team is that even though they were very successful as singles, they were a fantastic tag team. They wore the same trunks, the same boots, and came out to the same music. I know this may not seem like much, but there are not too many single superstars that would become a team like this. As you see from the WWE tag champs now, “Air Boom”, though they are the champs, they still seem like two singles competitors.

I would love to see more teams like this. That way they would seem like more of a team, and tag team wrestling would not seem like such a lost art.
AND THAT'S THE BOTTOM LLLLLIIIIINNNNNNEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!