Rebookmania ’89: The OTHER WrestleMania V Explosion

Yes, I’ve pulled myself away from MeTV Toons long enough to…obsess about wrestling instead.

When you think of WrestleMania V, you probably of course think of when the Megapowers EXPLODED. Depending on your side, either Randy Savage’s jealousy and paranoia or Hulk Hogan’s tomfoolery was just too much for the team, and the fallout led to the WWF title match we had for a main event. The match and feud was so memorable, saying a tag team “EXPLODES” when they become rivals is right up there with calling the lesser member of the team “the Jannetty.”

But if we remember that Mania, we also know that we saw the end of another fairly popular WWF tag team that year. Strike Force, Tito Santana and Rick Martel, joined up again for a match against the Brain Busters in Atlantic City. Only, if you read carefully between the lines, something was wrong. Oh, Martel seemed mostly happy to be in the team again, but he also made comments along the lines of, “Well, I wanted to build up my singles career, but this is cool too!” But to younger me, this was hidden enough that I was surprised when, after some miscommunication during the Mania match, Rick left ringside and abandoned Tito to certain defeat against Tully and Arn. Postmatch, Martel gave an interview complaining how he was tired of Tito Santana, and of carrying Strike Force. Years of on-again, off-again feuding, and plenty of Royal Rumble bumrushing, followed. IF Rick Martel ever makes it to the Hall of Fame, I want Tito to induct him. Only Rick comes out first, not knowing where he went…only for Tito to rush the stage and make like he’s going to attack him again.

Anyway, like other choice parts of 1989 (some of which I addressed before), I find that the Strike Force breakup begs for some rebooking. There are details that I feel could have been brought up, and some minor changes that could have benefitted the storyline :

• First, just like the Megapowers breakup was a storyline ongoing for over a year (maybe longer if you think of its roots), the end of Santana and Martel’s union could be traced back to the previous WrestleMania, where they lost the tag team titles to Demolition. Recall that Rick had the match presumably won with the Boston Crab, as Tito was going after Mr. Fuji, which distracted the referee. This allowed the interference with the manager’s cane that led to their defeat. Have Martel stew over that one for a year, and then Santana DARED to ask him to team up again a year later?
• As an added bonus, you could have Martel furthermore ask Tito where he was when he got the Demolition Decapitation outside of the ring that led him to miss the rest of 1988. Maybe even include the “is he lying or isn’t he?” heel claims that he was never visited by his partner after the injury, and why was he so hypocritical in resuming his own singles career while he was gone? Yet now, he wants back in a tag team just because Martel came back? The nerve, Chico! (Sorry, the spirit of 1989 Jesse Ventura got into me…)
• Now for some actual rebooking. In WrestleMania V as we know it, we already know about Strike Force vs. Brain Busters. On the same show was another tag team showdown: The Rockers against the Twin Towers, the latter of which just came off of their involvement in the end of the Megapowers. Of course, the Rockers and the Busters already had an issue, and we saw them go to a heated no-contest on Saturday Night’s Main Event. If you swapped out opponents in these two tag matches, we could have had a win-win: another Rockers/Busters match guaranteed to be a classic. Maybe have some stipulation to keep a double-DQ or countout from happening?
• But let’s move onto the biggie here: we would now also have Strike Force vs. Akeem and Bossman. It could play out like the match we did get, where Tito makes some mistake that triggers Rick’s breaking point. But remember that after his turn, Martel would be managed for awhile by Slick. Let’s have that make sense now : perhaps in the weeks prior to Mania, Slick has been scouting Martel as he made his comeback, and catching wind of Santana wanting to reform Strike Force, the manager warns him that Tito just wants him to carry him to world titles again, and he won’t be there when he needs him. When the gaffe occurs in the Mania match, you can have Slick get into Martel’s face with “I told ya so’s” and all…not unlike what happened in JCP with Barry Windham’s break from his team with Lex Luger (ironically, what were they called again?), and JJ Dillon’s involvement. The heel turn happens, Martel and Slick will now have a reason to be together, and he looks even worse for leaving Tito against a combined 800 pound tag team. And yes, the Towers were just in an identical situation back in that February, but here’s the upside: you get heat on them for claiming that they were responsible for killing off two of the WWF’s tag teams, and that builds them up more as the heels in the tag team title program they’d have with Demolition.
• But now, I am going to finish with the deep cut of these added details, for in WWF time, Tom Zenk was barely even a memory by this point anyway. Yes, I am going back to the Can-Am Connection, which is fresh in my memory now (special thanks as always to OVP Podcast). Remember that due to IRL disputes, we wound up with Zenk being painted as the now nameless coward who abandoned his partner rather than face the Islanders and Bobby Heenan. It would probably be a small bit, but a neat nod to his recent past to have Martel also complain that he knew he shouldn’t trust any tag team partners after what the “other guy” did to him. Then he gave Tito the benefit of the doubt and it worked for awhile, but then look what happened, etc.

So that’s my quickie Rebook Strike Force article. I know that the WWF wouldn’t think of treading too close to the Megapower breakup for various reasons, but it was interesting to look at how that “other” split might have been spiced up with some different buildup and more references to past history.