When Santino Marella debuted for WWE, winning the Intercontinental Championship in the process, he was billed as being from Italy. Although he is of Italian descent, the former Superstar was actually born in Ontario, Canada.

Catching up with Lilian Garcia for her podcast, Chasing Glory, Marella discussed his impressive Italian debut. He also spoke about how his lack of ego helped him gain popularity.
Milan Miracle

Marella recalled learning basic Italian phrases while stuck in horrific Toronto traffic during his daily 115-minute commute. Turns out these phrases would help change his life.

“I didn’t really learn to speak Italian, but I can say things on the tape so when they [WWE] called me and asked me to say something in Italian I just said ‘I want to buy a half kilo of cheese’ in Italian. It was on the tape. I can hear them looking around with each other and thinking that it sounded pretty good even though they don’t know what I had said, so that was it. I had said another phrase and they were sold.”

He continued, “They flew me to Italy and me winning the IC title had [been planned] the night before… I got the phone call Friday, flew out Saturday, landed Sunday and debuted Monday, so it was a crazy whirlwind of, like, ‘what just happened here?’ I didn’t even really believe it until it happened. I didn’t want to almost believe it and then something changes last minute, but it happened, and that was it.”

Synonymous with comedy sketches and matches, Santino believes that his lack of ego helped him grow as a WWE Superstar.

“[…] one of the things that made me different was that I wasn’t one of those guys that had a massive ego and I think that was what was refreshing for even some people. For example a lot of the guys I am the wives’ favorite, or I am someone’s grandmother’s favorite because everyone is putting on that macho, badass cool guy and this guy isn’t trying to do that. He is just going out and having fun and being silly which is what made me stand out as a character and as a person too.”

Santino Marella is currently scheduled to appear at GCW’s BloodSport II event on September 14th. He will be competing under his real name, Anthony Carelli.