Daria Rae Was Excited To Work With Santino Marella In TNA, Talks Pitch For Her Debut

Daria Rae says the opportunity to work with Santino Marella was part of her desire to work for TNA, and gave some details on how her debut was pitched. Rae is now in an on-screen authority position opposite Marella, having made her debut on TNA Impact’s premiere on AMC.

Rae talked with Denise Salcedo about her debut and what the pitch was, as well as her excitement about working with Marella. You can see the highlights below:

On Wanting To Work With Marella:

“I would always keep up on socials and to be honest, what TNA had been doing over the past like six months was really making me excited. Santino specifically as a character, I would just watch his segments and be like, ‘Oh, I would love to shut him up.’ Like, he’s just — his comedic timing is so good. He’s so funny, he’s so beloved by the fans. And I immediately saw how cool the dichotomy could be between myself and him.

“And so I kind of manifested that maybe a little bit. And just — everything that TNA was doing, I thought it was hotter than ever. I saw a lot of excited wrestlers on the independents wanting to get there. And it kind of just made sense with the partnership with Invicta, and the work I had done with Shannon Knap. And so I was like, ‘I think this is where I’m supposed to be. I think this is where what I’m supposed to do right now.’ It just felt like next step.”

On Their Pitch For Her:

“Yeah, so they kind of had an original idea. It was similarish. And I was kind of — I had my idea, which is what you guys saw. We really met in the middle though, and creative over there has been so great. Tommy Dreamer and Hunter [Johnston] and yeah, we kind of just went back and forth and we were like, ‘I think this is what makes sense to do.’ And then kind of last minute it was my idea to kind of come out and see if the crowd would cheer for me, and then flip on them. Because I don’t know, I think I did it for my own twisted purposes. But I was like, ‘Let’s just see.’ And I did not know if it was going to work, because I had only been known to be hated.

“So I really didn’t know if it was going to work. And then it did, thankfully, and I was very excited about that. So yeah, this was kind of the original plan, but I think everyone had a similar idea in mind.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Denise Salcedo with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.