Santino Marella Announces Upcoming Closure of Battle Arts Academy

– Former WWE Superstar Santino Marella announced on his Facebook page this week that his Battle Arts Academy is going to be shutting down next month. Battle Arts will be holding two more live events on September 12 and 13. The show will be an outdoor event and will allow for a maximum 100 people to be in attendance.

Per Santino Marella, aka Anthony Carelli, the last day for the school will be September 30. You can view the full statement from Santino Marella below:

Anthony Carelli aka Santino Marella announced he will be shutting down his Battle Arts Academy with two final live events on 9/12 and 9/13. Carelli announced that he had been looking to buy property near the Georgian Bay near Lake Ontario and an amazing property ended up in his lap and that a dream home landed in his family’s lap when they least expected it, but the move will mean he can no longer operate the Academy, which is located in Mississauga. The final shows will have a maxmimum attendance of 100 fans and the school will shut down on 9/30. Marella noted that closing the facility is bittersweet but with his father getting older and not well and his own son about to turn 2, he wants to spend more time with family.

So I have news, both happy & sad. To give you some back-story, I’ve been searching forever-home properties up near Georgian Bay for quite some time now, years to be honest. We were thinking / hoping to make the move in about 3 years time. Properties that intrigued us were not easy to come by because Anna and I had specific items that were important to each of us. Long story short, the right one appeared out of nowhere this weekend and we jumped in headfirst. We’re moving to our dream home! It checked every single box, and there were many.

That being said this means that we’re also moving, modifying, and scaling down our family business, Battle Arts Academy Inc. The stars seemed to all line up at a moments notice. My sister is moving to Wasaga Beach in about a week, the real estate market in the GTA is booming, surviving Covid meant another 5 years of insanity that quite frankly I’m just not willing to go through anymore. The phrase I use is “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze”. There are other factors too, the passing of my brother really hit us hard and I just want to spend more time with my family. My dad is not well and my baby boy is soon turning 2. I don’t want be away from this anymore than I absolutely have to. The terms “small business burnout” or “entrepreneurial fatigue” are real and one often takes them home to his/her spouse, which is not fair. My wife and I are closer than ever lately and its largely because of the break we had from my/our self inflicted slavery. I know I really don’t owe anyone an explanation, its my life, but I feel a sense of responsibility to our members because there are many dreams that are being fulfilled at Battle Arts. I know people will find suitable alternatives and I hope they will always think of Battle Arts fondly. I learned a lot of about myself during the last 7 years. I also learned a lot about being an entrepreneur, being a boss, being a coach, being a mentor, and a lot about what really makes me truly happy.

Sept 30th is our last day. I hope everyone will train up until the last minute to try to soak up as much of the place as possible. The renovations we just did truly made the gym look the best it’s ever looked. Life can be funny like that sometimes. I take pride in the fact that I created the most beautiful and complete training facility I’ve ever seen in my life. Battle Arts was not my original concept but a compilation of outstanding parts of World-class training facilities I’ve seen all over the world. I’m going to post some pics and videos this week.

Our last Pro Wrestling show is Saturday Sept 12th. It will be an outdoor show with a max of 100 people. Tickets will be available shortly. I’m stepping away from coaching Judo for the time being however its going to allow me more time to actually do and enjoy judo, specially now as the Judo Canada ambassador. You will still see me on SportsNet so no change there.

I built Battle Arts Academy from the ground up, it started with a drawing, some sweat equity, my own hard earned savings, and boom, it eventually became alive. I tightened all the bolts and cleaned the toilets too. I was the recycling and HVAC police, and made hundreds of life long friends. There were good times and bad times. I’ve seen the worst in people and the best in people. So many mixed emotions right now, but I can definitely say I’m at peace. To me life is all about chapters, when you reach the end of one, you turn the page.