Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentary Crew.
The Man (Part 2):
After Starrcade ’83, Valentine spent a few more months in Jim Crockett Promotions, while also appearing on WWF TV. Greg was one of the last wrestlers to actively follow the traditional pattern for transitioning from one territory to another before the wrestling wars of the mid-80’s saw rampant talent jumps with little to no warning from other promotions into the WWF.
Valentine turned babyface in JCP for his final months. He feuded with Dick Slater and formed a team with Wahoo McDaniel. During the same period he was heeling it up on WWF TV. Valentine finally came into the WWF for good in late March. The Hammer faced off with old foe Bob Backlund at first and received some matches with World Champ Hulk Hogan, but his main focus and foe soon became Tito Santana and Tito’s Intercontinental title.
The pursuit began in April and Valentine chased Tito across the ever expanding borders of the WWF until September 24th of ’84 Valentine snagged the Intercontinental title in Canada and hobbled Tito in the process. The feud continued all the way until the following August and records indicate they two men battled over 150 times during this period. The matches were kept fresh by eventually transitioning into tag matches – with Valentine often teaming up with Brutus Beefcake and Tito forming teams with Ricky Steamboat and the JYD. Valentine defended the IC title at the first Wrestlemania against JYD – cheating to win until Tito Santana came to ring and informed the ref of Valentine’s indiscretion and convincing the ref to restart the match. Valentine walked off in protest and was counted out
Santana finally recaptured the title on July 6th of ’85 in a wild steel cage match. Valentine was so upset over the loss, that he destroyed the IC title after the match. It wasn’t long after that Beefcake and Valentine formed a full time tag team and snagged the tag team titles in late August from Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda. This led to a long series of matches with the British Bulldogs that culminated at Wrestlemania 2, where the Bulldogs snagged the tag team titles. After that Valentine began his slow decline down the card.
He and Beefcake split as a team a year later at Wrestlemania 3 and Dino Bravo joined Valentine as his new regular partner. They were stuck in the mid-card of a loaded WWF roster. After declining an angle that was to lead to a feud with the British Bulldogs, Valentine and Bravo were split up. The Hammer worked a series of matches with his old partner Beefcake, and was a participant in the Wrestlemania 4 world title tournament – having a great, albeit short match with Ricky Steamboat, and then a fun match with Randy “Macho Man” Savage. Soon after Wrestlemania, Valentine feuded with Don Muraco after crippling his manager/mentor “Superstar” Billy Graham with his infamous figure four leglock. The feud lasted into November when Muraco was fired. After Muraco’s firing, Valentine fell back into a directionless void – sometimes teaming with Honky Tonk Man, working a series of matches with Jim Neidhart and a few matches with Ron Garvin that essentially served as prep for their feud in the Spring of 1989.
Garvin and Valentine were stiff, old school style workers and they complemented each other well and gave the WWF fans a taste of JCP style ruggedness. In a rare instance of using a gimmick match without real provocation, Valentine beat Garvin in a “retirement” match in the Spring. This led to Garvin screwing with Valentine by being hired by the WWF as a ref and as a ring announcer. Eventually Garvin was brought back to in-ring action and he and Valentine battled in an entertaining submission match at the Royal Rumble ’90 PPV where both men were wearing shin guards – Hammer’s was to inflict further pain onto Garvin and Garvin’s was supposed to block the pain that the figure four causes.
After the Garvin feud brought out the primal ruggedness of Valentine’s style, the WWF turned him into a cartoon by forcing Valentine to color his hair black and team with the Honky Tonk Man – with Honky as Elvis Presley and Greg as his Roy Orbison wannabe partner. Then they were saddled with the Bushwackers as opponents. At least things turned around in the Fall as Honky and the Hammer were positioned as the number one contenders and pursued the Hart Foundation’s tag team gold. Honky and Hammer were set to split and feud heading into 1990 but Honky left the WWF.
Valentine’s face turn led to him getting beat by the WWF upper card heels, which wasn’t a much better fate than his later heel life.
Valentine faded away in the Fall and after a 1992 Royal Rumble appearance, he became part of the roster purge that was on going as the WWF transitioned to a younger, smaller roster that eliminated much of the talent that had come in during the mid – late 80’s.
Next time – Valentine tries a career resurgence in WCW, AWF, the Independents and random people’s backyards….
The Shoot:
This shoot was a different concept that Kayfabe Commentaries attempted briefly, where 2 men from a famous wrestling feud would be interviewed on their memories separately and at the end they would have a joint meeting to talk face to face.
Tito and Greg first met in the late 70’s. Tito thinks he challenged Valentine for a “silver dollar challenge”. Valentine doesn’t remember Tito much as Tito was a undercard worker and Valentine was a headliner. Greg believes their first match was in 1984. (Wrestlingdata.com says both men are wrong and their first match was a WWF show in July of 1979, a one and done match and as I type this Sean Oliver gives the correct date to the guys as well).
Tito knew Valentine was a star and Valentine had heard Tito was a good guy. Because they were on opposite sides of the heel/face dynamic, they weren’t able to “hang out”.
Valentine was impressed how quickly Tito moved up the cards, as it had took him many years to be a headliner.
Greg says Paul Orndorff was the first choice to be IC champ when Tito needed knee surgery, but Orndorff had heat with George Scott, the WWF booker, so Valentine got the nod.
The Hammer says Vince Jr. told others that he liked his work, but Vince wouldn’t say it to Greg’s face.
Tito’s knee was so bad that Andre the Giant had to carry Tito to his hotel room after some cards.
Roddy Piper told Tito to make Vince pay his medical bills and give him a severance to help him out as he recovered from surgery. Piper was planning on quitting that same day.
Tito was able to work well enough to do a final match and put Valentine over. The angle where Valentine injured Tito made the fans end up in a state of stunned silence.
Santana confirms Paul Orndorff was the other option before The Hammer to be IC champ.
Tito talks about how hot the feud was and how well it drew. Valentine thought he was going to beat Tito for the title once more before the feud ended.
Greg was happy as he was given the World tag belts almost as soon as his angle with Tito wrapped up.
Valentine was brought in the WWWF in the late 70’s because the roster stunk and nobody worked stiff or a technical style, so Valentine was breath of fresh air.
Business boomed as the feud gained heat – Valentine says Detroit in particular grew 4 or 5 times over in crowd size as the feud developed.
Don Muraco no showed an event in the Fall of 84 and Vince was pissed off and wanted Greg to drop the belt as a replacement for what they had planned for Muraco. Valentine refused to job on the basis of the booming houses.
Santana talks about his brief NFL career and how hard work overcame his lack of skill.
Mr. Fuji helped Santana greatly in learning how to work.
Santana came back only 10 days off after his knee surgery. Tito didn’t want to miss a MSG payday.
Tito didn’t work a bump heavy style in the first matches back, focusing on brawling to avoid his knee getting tweaked.
The WWF “invaded” the Omni in late 84 – Valentine hadn’t worked there much before as Ole Anderson was booker for GCW which ran the Omni and he and Greg didn’t get along.
Tito vs. Greg was not put on Wrestlemania 1, because ‘Mania had enough drawing power already and adding another major match would be burning out too many angles.
Howard Finkel told Valentine that he and Tito had the longest running feud in WWF history up to that point.
Vince warned the guys a month in advance that Tito was taking the belt back.
Jay Strongbow helped the guys with finishes that would build to the next match.
This feud was selling out places that even Hogan couldn’t.
Valentine liked to ignore the cage for the early portions of that gimmick to build to a bloody crescendo.
Baltimore was picked as the city that would see the IC title change, as it was a key battleground city for JCP vs. WWF and this would hopefully pop future business.
Santana says Gorilla Monsoon came up with the finish for the cage match which saw Valentine have the cage door kicked in his face as Tito was climbing over the top.
Tito threw the IC title belt away after Valentine destroyed it in a post-match angle. Both men regret not having it to sell now.
Santana thinks Jack Brisco taught him the figure four as part of the angle.
Valentine and Tito both worked stiff and that helped them mesh.
Greg doesn’t know how “the fake phony shit” that is on TV now draws.
Both men cut promos on each other to build to a fictional future match.
Tito tried to retaliate some of Valentine’s stiff shots, and Greg would try and block Tito’s shots as best he could.
Santana HATED taking chops and thought they were lousy psychology and caused legit pain.
Valentine talks the subtleties of working heel.
Santana asked Vince to let him turn heel in 1989 when he and Martel split up.
Greg bled a lot more than Tito. Santana says he would do shitty blade jobs so the promoters would stop asking him to bleed.
Tito feels his race had little to do with getting over.
The Hammer caught a chair shot wrong from Tito and split his head open. He had to argue with the doctors to avoid having his head shaved.
Valentine thinks this is one of the top 10 feuds in wrestling history – thanks to the length, scope and lasting appeal.
Greg thinks the feud had more juice in it. Greg suggests that Tito could have broken his leg to build for another round of matches.
This was the Hammer’s best money feud.
Valentine demeans other guys who fail to work a more aggressive tone when feuding. He also bashes Flair for working the same match all the time and The Iron Sheik and Jim Duggan on being caught running together.
The men met 7 times in MSG between 1984 and 1985.
Tito is a school teacher and owns a hair salon in Jersey.
Final Thoughts: A unique concept that was fairly interesting, although some bits tended to get repetitive. Had the feud itself had more actual angles, the monotony may have been broken up a bit, as it is, there is only so many ways to talk about how stiff your matches were, how big the crowds were etc etc. but that’s how things were back then. Mild recommendation.
