They never practiced – Mr. Fuji taught him to read the crowd
Tito Santana told the In The Front Row podcast that the entire WWF roster wrestled without a single practice session, and that the man who taught him how to actually work a match was Mr. Fuji.
“Believe it or not, we never practiced, you know, we were traveling. We’d fly into a different city. We get there, we check into the hotel, eat, go to the gym, get a couple hours of rest. We had to be the arena an hour before the matches started, so the fans were already in. So, you know, we didn’t have a preview to go in and practice any moves. But we didn’t need to, because everybody back then was so good.”
Mr. Fuji’s lesson was simple.
“Mr. Fuji taught me this. It says, listen to the people, the people tell you what they want. And I think to myself, What do you mean? Listen to the people, they tell you what they want. And before you know it, it’s true.”
Fuji called every spot in his ear during a hold
Santana described the way Fuji guided him through a match while in a hold, instructing him in real time.
“I remember Fuji had me in a hold, you know, and all of a sudden he says, okay, Tito son, put your arm up a little bit and start shaking. Start shaking, and listen to the crowd. And the more you shook the hand, the more the people went crazy. Said, Okay, get on your knees. You know they would call. They were so good, they would call all the spots for me.”
He learned to lead like a dance partner
Santana said for the first five years of his career, every man he stepped in the ring with was better than him.
“You learn every time for the first five years, every time I stepped into the ring, everybody that I was wrestling against was better than me. So I was learning every night I would just listen, you know, and I became a good follower. It’s like a guy leading a woman on a dance. It’s the same thing, you know, I was the girl, you know, the heels would lead me, and I was a good follower. And people loved working with me, because when it time for me to fight back, I had a lot of fire, and they loved that.”
They only knew the finish, not the road there
The agents handed wrestlers the result before the match. Everything else was made up on the fly.
“The only thing we knew, the agents that read the shows, they say, okay, Tito, you’re going over tonight. This is how you’re going to go over. Everything else we would put together, you know, we didn’t discuss in the locker room. We didn’t do anything. We just go in there and we listen to the people and we, you know, we did it.”
Santana broke down the babyface formula he ran every night.
“A baby face would always out-wrestle the heel. The heel would have to cheat to stop you. You know, the baby face would do stuff to look good. The heel would have to do stop you, poke your eyes, do something behind the referee. Now that the heel is getting heat on you and you fighting back, but they stop you again. Fighting back. Stop you again. But when it came time to make your final comeback. When we’re going home, we say, going home, you know, nobody’s stopping you. Then you go, boom, boom, boom. You make your comeback. You either go over you beat the guy, or the guy would cheat and beat you.”
He thinks WWE is pricing fans out today
Santana said he attended WrestleMania last year in Las Vegas but skipped the most recent one. He has concerns about the modern product.
“The wrestling these guys that are wrestling now don’t have anybody to teach them in the first place, but they don’t have that much time in the ring. Most of their wrestling is our interviews in the middle of the ring nowadays, they don’t. There’s no way they could ever learn the business like, like I learned it.”
He said the ticket prices are out of control.
“I went to WrestleMania last year in Vegas. I didn’t want to go this year. I don’t want to overdo my presence. But I understand that a lot of the tickets are not sold, you know. So, you know, I understand that they’re struggling to draw, but they’re so expensive, you know, how can anybody afford to pay $1,000 you know, for your kids to you and your kids to sit in the match. You know, it’s, uh, I think they’re out pricing themselves.”
Mr. Fuji, born Harry Fujiwara, died on August 28, 2016 at age 82. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007. Fuji wrestled under his Japanese-villain gimmick from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s before transitioning to a manager role through the mid-1990s. WrestleMania 41 was held at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada on April 19 and 20, 2025. Santana retired from full-time teaching at Eisenhower Middle School in Roxbury Township, New Jersey on June 15, 2023, after a 26-year career as a Spanish teacher and basketball coach.
You can click below to watch the full interview.
