On her podcast, Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia, last week, Garcia was joined by Santino Marella. During the course of the interview, they discussed several different topics, such as when Santino realized he couldn’t wrestle any longer, being banned from Japan, his debut in OVW, the Milan Miracle, and much more. Here are just a few of those!
On not being able to wrestle full-time any longer:
“I knew it was coming. I saw specialists years ago that said you don’t need surgery yet. I had heard it at University; it had affected my judo career as well. The whole career I was protecting it and physio and traction and stretching it out while on the road. The flare ups got worse and they got closer together almost it got to the point where it was like, okay.
“They (WWE) had me do the surgery and the expectation was that I was going to come back from it and then there was like a freak accident where a couple of screws from the titanium plate came out and they were loose in there and one turned. This is three months after the surgery where they had to cut in and take out the titanium and the screws so that one I think really messed it up the worst and if we didn’t have to go back in, I was hoping it was going to be okay. But after that it never got well enough to go back in there.”
On being released from the WWE:
“Then we (WWE) were talking about a non-wrestling role like a General Manager or something like that and that was the plan. All the time during your injury that you have, they can add that on to your contract. So, I was off for like two years and my contract would have been expired by that time but I figured, okay, I have two years because I was off for two years and that is what they told me. And then one day they called and said that they weren’t going to exercise their option to extend it so my contract will be up next month. It was crazy.”
On his daughter entering the wrestling scene:
“I think when she is having her time there, I want it to be private. Like, I kind of want to be in the booth watching and having fun like a dad instead of a character, but it’s definitely going to be fun. My son is nine months old and hopefully if she’s still there in 10 years he will remember that his sister was there wrestling. She saw me and he gets to see her.”
You can listen/watch the entire interview in the video at the top of the page. Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia is a weekly podcast Garcia broadcasts featuring past, present, and future wrestlers, primarily from WWE.
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