Santino Marella Got Everyone To Break Character! Mispronouncing Names, Stone Cold, The Cobra

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Santino Marella (@milanmiracle) is a professional wrestler currently signed to TNA. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at ACW in Oshkosh, WI to discuss his favorite comedic moments and mispronunciations, how he became TNA's Director of Authority and was able to keep his WWE name, working with his daughter Arianna Grace, the inspiration for the Santino walk, the Cobra battle with Mick Foley and Mr. Socko, a possible Hall of Fame induction and more! 

Quote I'm thinking about: “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” – Mark Twain

On his Italian accent not being real:

"I used to be Russian too. There were times in OVW, I would go out and I'd be in character as Boris Alexia the whole night, just talking to people, just in character to pop the guys. But there was one girl, because she liked Boris, she actually liked Boris. And then later on in the night, I was kind of speaking in my regular voice, she was so upset. She started liking that guy and realizing that person doesn't exist. Who's this jerk that's left behind? So she was a little upset."

On the differences between him and the Santino character:

"There’s probably a lot of Anthony in the character Santino. It's funny, my wife says that I'm not funny, but she says Santino is funny, I'll give you credit, but you're not funny. I'm like, I am Santino. What are you talking about? So anyway, I guess there's elements of me that are blown up in the character Santino."

On his favourite catchphrases:

"'Those are the bottom lines' was a funny one. The reason it was funny is because Stone Cold put a spotlight on it and said, 'It's that's the bottom line.' We were off script too, and I was like, 'Well, sometimes I have more than one thing to say.' I saw him kind of bite his lip a little bit. So the things that were brought to light or that were focused on, remember those. But I still, to this day, I'm constantly trying to come up with [new ideas]."

On becoming TNA’s Director of Authority:

"Scott D'Amore kind of asked me if I was interested a few times, and it's just timing wasn't right. Then coming out of COVID, I'm like, you know what? I think it's time. Everything kind of lined up, talked to my wife and we went back in. So anyway, I got a call from Robert Evans, who was one of the writers at the time, and he had this vision of the Director of Authority. We started talking about that FBI kind of in the beginning, I was wearing tactical pants, and I had like, an FBI jacket, which someone scooped up. I don't know who it was. We had some TNA shows at Battle Arts back in the day, and during cleanup, someone scooped it. So, yeah, it was one of one. Then we switched to the tracksuits, which came in super handy, it's one of our sponsors. But being able to wear a uniform on a weekly basis, it just saves so much decision-making. What am I going to wear? I have a uniform. I wear the tracksuit with the badge, it's good for now." 

On his daughter Arianna Grace:

"She's something special. She was identified from a young child as just exceptional with regards to her speech, her presence. Luckily, she turned out pretty too, because that's kind of a you're born with that or not, right? I mean, you can work on it, I guess. But she's tall, she's athletic. So when she finished her degree, we kind of, for the first time ever, we never talked about it before she finished university. And I was like, do you want to do this? She was like, you actually think I can do this? Of course, this is not rocket science. It just takes dedication and hard work, which anyone can do. You don't have to be naturally gifted to be a hard worker and dedicated. So when you have these natural, raw abilities and this potential, and you apply. All she had to do, in my opinion, was be the hardest worker in the room, and she became the hardest worker in the room. So her first tryout, she was not ready, and she didn't get hired. Then the switch went off, she packed up, moved to Orlando. She was training at multiple schools, busting her ass, got in great shape. And then when she received another tryout, she just blew them away. She was the talk of the tryout, and she got hired from that, she was just in shape, and this time she was ready. So it was no freebies. When you're a second-generation talent, the idea of receiving a freebie is a horrible thing to be accused of. Some people will also understand that you're going to be given an opportunity, but it's up to you to capitalize on the opportunity. I remember talking with Cody when he was younger, that was one of the worst things you could say to him ever, was you're only here because your dad. So he became super hard working to eliminate and remove the potential for someone to even say that. I think he's done a great job, working so hard that no one could say that to him anymore."

On his first comedy moment:

"I remember the exact moment, actually. The babyface Santino was around for a few months, I think, April, May, June, July. So somewhere in a few months in the summer. As you know, the WWE Universe does not like to be force-fed anything. They will spit it out. They were being force fed this new guy who was in the audience; he beat Chris Masters, and he beat Shelton Benjamin, and he pulled off a victory against this guy and that guy. They're like, Yeah right. BS, don't tell us to like this guy. Then I had a match with Umaga where he regained the Intercontinental Championship, and he's murdering me. They were like, one more time, thumbs down, kill this guy. Then I guess they had the conversation where they said, okay, the audience is not kind of accepting this. Let's turn him bad guy, I guess, and if that doesn't work, maybe see you later, I don't know. The moment I turned into a bad guy and complained with the accent, apparently Vince popped. He's funny. He thought it was because as soon as I turned bad and I got the mic as a bad guy, had the mic every week, guest commentary in ring promos. So I popped the right guy, and I was given the ball. Michael Hayes said it once, 'Every promo is like a first down, getting first down, first down, first down. Then you work up to getting in the ring with Stone Cold Steve Austin, he's like, 'You've been getting all these first downs. Can you cross the goal line now we're watching?' That was an awesome segment. I remember backstage, Vince looked at me, and he went like he just went up a level. And I was like, Oh, I know what that means, man. Those days were crazy, because it was just like when I debuted, it was, 'Welcome to the team, now go home and pack your bags, you're on the road now.' I was on like 95% of live events. I remember coming home, taking my dirty laundry, washing machine, dryer, back in the bag, out the door, for like, years and years and years and years. It's funny, when you look at some recognizable figures in wrestling and you're like, yeah, they were on Raw for like, five years. I was on the road longer than that, I was in the company for 10 years. You don't realize at the time, because you're just so focused on what you're doing. But yeah, I'm proud of the 10-year career there."

On whether there was anyone he didn't get to break character:

"Well, it's funny, because some guys like, for example, Mark Henry backstage, spitting out his water laughing when he goes out there, he's flicks that switch and he would not break character on TV. He is scary when he's out there. He scared the hell out of me once in gorilla just by saying, 'Hey, just so you know, when I go out there, I'm indestructible, protect yourself.' I was like, Oh my God, what's about to happen? Then he's like, 'I'm just messing with you, man.' I'm like, don't do that." 

On Santina:

"Santina was funny because it was only like three months, but there was so many memorable moments crammed into three months. It was supposed to be one night, but again, it tickled the funny bone of the right person, and it ended up lasting for three months. But I tell you what, I got a lot of respect for the makeup process that girls go through, it’s like an hour. The fake lashes are hard. It's no joke, your face is burning from makeup and stuff. Yeah, they go through a lot."

On how Santina was created:

"Well, the storyline with Beth Phoenix was that I was an insecure boyfriend. She was the alpha in the relationship, and I was desperately trying to show that men are better athletes. So by dressing up as a woman and winning the battle royal and then revealing, Ha, I'm a man, I just won the women's battle royal, therefore men are better athletes. That was the idea. And then it was just executed so well that it stuck around for a while." 

On working with Beth Phoenix:

"We used to do little things that like when she'd flex, and I'd come around and bite her bicep like an apple, and she was the perfect [straight person]. You need the comedy guy and that straight person and stuff. She was excellent at the role, and then she's an awesome wrestler too. She was a high-level collegiate wrestler. They used to wrestle boys and stuff. And just watching her in the gym, sometimes you're like, she’s doing more than [me], squatting two plates for like, 20 or something, really legitimately strong, standing shoulder pressed a plate, really impressive lifts and then going out there and having great technical matches."

On the pitch to do the splits:

"It was one of those things. I was a bad guy, and when you’re the bad guy, the jokes on you. So me trying to do it, and it backfiring; the egg was on me. Back then, it was a lot of Brian Gewirtz. When Santino was a bad guy, it was a lot of Brian Gewirtz, were kind of married there for a while, and he's brilliant. He was one of the writers that really could visualize how I would deliver something and write for it. So some writers, they'll try and write like, 'I'm gonna go and fight you…' and try and write as Santino. But he wouldn't. He just, he'd write it normal and let me bring it to life. But he had a really good understanding of how I would bring it to life. So a lot of the golden stuff from Santino, when he was a bad guy, was all Brian Gewirtz."

On the Santino walk:

"It was something from judo. We had a training camp one time and I think at a training camp, we were doing it as a part of a fun warm-up to try and do the speed walk and race without running, and I was good at it. So there's actually a story where 1995, the summer my daughter was born, I worked at a warehouse, and there was four warehouses or factories that had this Family Day. There's all these hot dogs, and you can throw a baseball and dunk your manager or whatever. Then the culmination was this big Olympic race walk event. I think I was 20 at the time, and someone said, 'Yeah, there's a big race walk event.' I go, 'I'm gonna win that for sure.' Because I was at the peak of my athletic career. I was a young, 180-pound athlete that was like twisted steel. I just won national championships and all this stuff. Anyway, around that time, I was in really good shape, and they go, 'No, no, you're not gonna win. There's this guy from Argentina. He wins every year. He's a former pro soccer player.' I'm like, what? I see the guy. Oh, damn. He looks like he has big legs, and he took it seriously. So there were two heats, I won my heat, and then he won his heat, and then it was the finals. It was me and him, and gathered around, but it was a square like baseball, running the bases, so to speak. I played baseball, so he was really tight to the line, and I was out a little bit. I knew I had to round the corner. Everyone's like, move in, move in. Stay close. I’m like trust me, I got it. So anyway, he took the lead, but he took the corner wide because he was so tight. And I came on the inside, and I had the lead, and then I just had to, as I see him again, I wish I had mirrors. I kind of move over and, not let him pass, and then anyway, I won. I was a bad, bad sport. I was doing flips and cartwheels like I won the world championships. So I was telling someone that I won this race before, and they thought it was hilarious and I should incorporate it into the entrance. It was one of those things where I kind of jinxed myself, because Vince thought it was very funny. He wanted me to do two laps of the ring in my entrance. The ring is huge, and the second lap was always so awkward, because they saw it. I try and get away with one lap sometimes, but because it also ate up a lot of time, I wanted to have a match as well, but then I even tried to stop, and he said, no, no, no, do the race walk. Every time there's an Olympics, there's a clip of a race walk people like, oh, Santino inspired a generation. I wonder how fast I really am against those guys."

On the cobra vs. Socko spot with Mick Foley:

"It was funny, because I kind of pitched the whole thing to him, and he was so giddy during my pitch, he was loving it. Anyway, I wanted to do the whole back into each other, a couple of gun fighters in the Wild West, and then kind of turn and then see each other, and kind of get ready. We didn't time it out, but it took us the exact same amount of time to put our respective socks on, and then we kind of did that. It was perfect timing. Then we circled, there was other guys in the ring, but everyone just kind of got small. You can see Big Show just watching and enjoying it. And yeah, then we did the battle. We were supposed to do a little more. You know like in movies, wizards will have rays kind of hitting each other, they'll go back. We were supposed to kind of do that across the ring but Cody jumped in a little early, and I was like, we had more planned, but anyway, it was still memorable, because people understood immediately what was happening. Oh, damn, It's sock versus sock, and he's the right guy. That was actually probably one of my most fun things."

On the snake charmer segment:

"So I talked to a person, it was a foreign student from India, and he's like every single person in India knows this clip. I mean, you're with two famous Indian athletes, Jinder Mahal and The Great Khali. So just by their fame alone, everyone's gonna have a look at it. Not that it's cultural representation by any means. But, yeah, it was funny. There's one part I'm actually proud of when I'm holding my own hand back from getting me, I thought the acting was good, it was serious, that's one of those things. So sometimes I'll go to a convention or something, and I'll meet somebody, a father, and he goes, 'Oh my son loves you.' I’m like your son’s like seven, how? [He goes] 'YouTube, TikTok, all your stuff's on there, and they love you.' And it's just strange because my neck surgery was 11 years ago, and then for the last several years I was just running Battle Arts Academy, and we had our family business, that's where I've been up until TNA. I was just a home body guy, so there wasn't a lot of new material. But I guess it's now to the point where it's vintage. I had that realization recently. I'm not popular current, I'm popular vintage, and I'm okay with vintage. I guess I'm a little vintage these days. I'm in my 50s."

On Santino’s reaction to the pitch:

"At first, I didn't want it to be offensive. You know what I mean, culturally offensive. But it's one of those things, when I speak to people from Indian culture, they're not offended at all. So I was really happy with that. Because there was one time too, I think it was Jinder, where I was arguing with him and I was pretending to speak Indian, but I was just whatever kind of how it would sound to me. You see that sometimes online, how English sounds to foreigners, and actually kind of sounds like English, but they're not really saying anything. I just didn't want to be offensive to anybody, but it wasn't. So I talked to people that they thought it was cool. So that helped me a lot, be cool with it myself."

On a possible Hall of Fame induction:

"Well, it depends what you go to wrestling for. If you want macho tough guys, and some people just don't like comedy, they want to see slobber knockers each and every match. It's pretty polarized. I think the vast majority of people appreciate the comedy, but there are people that they have no place for comedy."

On being able to keep the Santino Marella name in TNA:

"So that was actually almost bigger news than me appearing on TNA, was the fact that I was Santino Marella. So in 2021, I imagine the COVID confusion or whatever, there were people getting fired and hired, and it seemed like it was team Hunter and team Vince, and they were changing regimes or whatever. Somebody didn't renew the trademark. So Scott D’Amore, as a habit, because if he's getting a former WWE guy, he kind of checks the trademark to see if they're available, because he has to get creative and come up with a name. If it's not Fandango, it's Dango or something that's legally not going to be too close to the intellectual property. He checked, and all of a sudden he goes, damn, Santino Marella is available. So he bought it. It's not as simple as you can just buy it and it's yours. There's a case that they created the character, they developed the character. It's still on their library. I mean, there's still tons of Santino stuff in the library. But when it's library use, I think it's not considered like current use, because it's from a library. So they sent an email or a phone call to Scott, and they say, 'Yeah, you're using our intellectual property.' And Scott's like, 'Actually, I own the trademark.' So they're like, 'Let me get back to you.' It's kind of sitting there for a while. Then they filed an extension to the time they can appeal it, and then when Scott was no longer with TNA, Ariel [Shnerer], in hopes of having a good relationship with WWE, kind of just gave it back to them. So they own it, but I'm not sure if a part of the deal was we'll give it back to you but can we use it? And we've been using it."

On the cobra being a protected finisher:

"No, I think it's where it kind of was originally in the roster. It wasn't like super main event guys. The only person ever kicked out of it once with the sleeve was Daniel Bryan, and one person kicked out of it without the sleeve, and that was Sheamus, and that was it. So when you factor in all the live events, yeah, it's like 99.9%. If I've done 1,000 cobras, two guys kicked out. I probably did 2,000 cobras, and two guys kicked out."

What is Santino Marella grateful for?

"Family, health and where we live."

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