Santino Marella Recalls Fans Turning On Him Early In WWE Career, Transforming Himself Into Comedy Character

In a recent interview on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, Santino Marella discussed fans turning on him early in his WWE career, transforming himself into a comedy character, and much more. You can read her comments below.

Santino Marella on fans turning on him early in his WWE career and transforming himself into a comedy character: “The WWE Universe was not impressed with being force-fed this fan. All of a sudden, I beat Chris Masters, I roll up Shelton Benjamin, and I’m pulling these victories. Everybody is like, ‘Yeah right, as if, this guy was in the audience.’ So they tried to say the backstory that, although he was in the audience, he was training to be a wrestler and that kind of thing. People were like, ‘Yeah, no thanks.’ It was in Houston one time and it was the pay-per-view where Umaga won back the title. He gave me the spike and they were like, ‘One more time! Kill him! Finish him!’ I’m like, these blood-thirsty savages want me dead. Then, the conversation was, turn him heel and if that doesn’t work, we’ll see you later or repackage. They turned me heel, and I cut a promo and it was funny from day one – me complaining in that accent. This is talking about all the luck, growing up in Toronto, all my friends are first-generation Canadians. All the parents are from Europe. So I always had that broken English around me my whole life and my family spoke like that. So now I have to speak in this….I’m picking basically little pieces of my childhood and incorporating them into my character, and I have an endless supply of funny content because I’m from a very European, first-generation neighborhood. I used all that stuff.”

Santino Marella on his daughter, Bianca Carelli, trying out for WWE and her future in wrestling: “There was no plan for her to wrestle until a few years ago. She’s finishing off university now, and in her first few years, she got a little lost herself. I was like, ‘Do you want to wrestle? You’re tall, you’re strong, you’re pretty.’ She won Ms. Teen Ontario back in the day, and she was in acting and modeling. So she started training with Tyson Dukes out there. I didn’t want to train her at first at the beginning because I yell at my students and push them. I’m hard on them. Then she came to training with me. She gets it, she gets the psychology and the storytelling aspect. She had her [WWE] tryout and they saw her and wasn’t in her best form and didn’t have her best gear. I’m all about put your super professional best thing out there, don’t show anybody anything until you’re ready. Now she just got into fitness and has this self-discipline now. All I wanted was her to be the hardest worker in the room. Now she’s up training at 6 AM every morning and measuring all her food and she’s in great shape. She can do standing dropkicks, up and overs, and leapfrog and some things sometimes girls have trouble with. She can do them all. And now she’s maturing. Let’s say she went to the PC at 22 – she’s gonna do something stupid, right? Now she’s got her stupidity out of the way, like I did unfortunately, and she’s ready and focused. She’s a star…..she has the in-ring ability and presence. I want to go watch her at WrestleMania.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.