Santino Marella Isn’t Interested In Wrestling Anymore, Prefers Commentary

In an interview with Fightful, Santino Marella said that he’s no longer interested in wrestling full-time and prefers doing work outside the ring. Here are highlights:

On his busy schedule and not making a full-time return to wrestling: “That’s a good question. Well, once I opened Battle Arts, you’re there seven days a week, right? So it wasn’t even much of a choice. I was coaching, taking my judo athletes to tournaments on the weekends, putting on shows, kid’s birthday parties. I was working seven days a week, actually. I was doing some commentary for the World Judo Tour and helping out with [Destiny] and stuff like that. So anyway, I ended up being more busy than I ever was in WWE and so that was one of the reasons. Then COVID happened and so now I have business partners. So the load is a lot lighter and I moved up north. So now that I’m able to come out and go do some stuff. The stuff I go do now, I have fun again.”

On is stance on wrestling full time: “No, I don’t really have a whole lot of interest in wrestling too much, to be honest. I enjoy doing commentary and maybe in the future you’ll see me somewhere as a color commentator, producer or something like that. My wrestling days are definitely behind me in terms of a career. I do it for fun. But I’ve got two small kids at home and I’m staying home and enjoying that as much as possible.”

On if his physical health prevents him from wrestling a lot: “Yeah, I had neck surgery. No, I don’t wrestle very much, to be honest. Recently it’s been a lot of local Canadian stuff. I do like to get out and do stuff in Canada. I couldn’t do this on a full time basis, that’s for sure. I have back issues and neck issues. But I am pretty meticulous with my rehab—sorry, ‘pre-hab.’ A lot of stretching, hydration, inversion, strengthening my neck. I train like twice a day. Health is wealth, right? I just want to be as healthy as possible.”