Santino Marella Gives His Pick For the Royal Rumble Winner, Talks His Near-Win and More

– Santino Marella spoke with Sports Illustrated for a new interview about his Royal Rumble experiences and more. Some highlights are below:

On his pick to win the 2017 Royal Rumble match: “I love Brock Lesnar and hope he wins. I’d have him eliminate Undertaker at the end. That would be a good swerve. Everyone would think Undertaker was going to get his revenge on Brock, and then Brock would eliminate him, as to say, ‘Not today.’ But there are a lot of big names in the Rumble, which means there will be all these big names who don’t win.”

On his record for shortest time in the Rumble match: “Hopefully that record stands for a long time. I actually know how to beat it, but I’m not going to tell anybody. I found a way to shave off half a second, but I don’t want anyone else to beat it. I knew the Warlord’s record was beatable. There was no sense of urgency in the way he entered the ring. When I broke the record, I had my technique down: I was going to slide under, pop up, and Kane was going to meet me at the right time. I had very little room for error, but I found a way to even beat my record. I think I could do it in about a second-and-a-half.”

On nearly winning the Royal Rumble in 2011: “I was just a few steps away from headlining WrestleMania. The way I was living it in the moment, people really thought I was actually going to do it. When you can give people a real solid swerve, they remember that for a long time.”