We missed out on a lot of potentially great stuff cause most guys over the age of 40 were considered washed unless they were top guys.
We should have gotten Tito Santana as the strait laced senior member of the lWo, at least. Although I guess that one could STILL happen…
I'd buy this argument more if the LWO was a WWF gimmick in 1998, not WCW.
Tito would have been 46ish and, would have been 10 years removed as being in any role other than a JTTS.
Russo wasn't booking so the WWWF/WWF fan booking wasn't there.
Santana was a good/great worker in his prime and probably could have still sold his ass off/psychology, but the Luchas raised the bar for high spots so the days of the Titos and Brunzells being considered "hi flyers" for using dropkicks were past. I don't really want Tito trying to wreck his knees and back doing dives just to show he's like one of the kids.
If you want an old Lucha/Mexican to be the cranky old man of the LWO, Chavo Sr makes more sense on every level given his son and brothers were all under WCW employ. You can even get washed Piper to do something vs the LWO based on he and Chavo's 70s rivalry.
I also think the WWF schedule in the 80s chewed guys up at a much higher rate than any company in the last 20 years can compare to. Hard rings, non stop travel. There is a good reason guys from that era largely bowed out before the 97 boom could reinvigorate them in their late 40s.
Thankfully Tito had a real career to fall back upon so he could just do a few indies for fun and show up 2 or 3 times a month for WWF to do Spanish commentary (whenever that timeframe was).
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