Here are
highlights and the audio of an interview with Santino Marella via Ring Rust
Radio:
On what he’s looking forward to at
Payback: “I really want to see the Shield vs.
Evolution, for me, because this is a real classic story of the old champions
that are past their prime and the new up-and-comers and somewhere theirs paths
have to cross, somewhere one was going to be better than the other and it all
was going to shift and change. Now? Is it maybe 2 years from now? That’s what I
am really curious to see.”
On his favorite personal
match/angle/moment in WWE:
“It’s very difficult for me and I often tell people that the best moment is yet
to come, but I believe winning the United States Championship was very nice,
Elimination Chamber was very special for me, defending my US Title in a cage vs.
Jack Swagger was cool; I had never been in a cage match before, to have just one
moment; maybe wrestling in Italy.”
On incorporating his MMA background
into future matches: “For my matches maybe not because my
character is established but for the future and young talent, I believe this is
the way the business should go because of the growth of MMA and people are
becoming more savvy when it comes to submissions and takedowns and things like
that. Before, when we said that wrestling was real we didn’t have to work so
hard, but now that we acknowledge that it’s entertainment we have to be very
realistic and that is the style we teach at Battle Arts Academy in
Toronto.”
On getting the name “Marella” as an
homage to Robert “Gorilla Monsoon” Marella:
“When they told me, immediately I realized it was an honor and a privilege and
it did put some pressure on me to deliver the goods, so to
speak.”
On working with different Divas over
the years: “If you know how to use them then of
course you have a synergy and if you don’t know how to use them it can be a
waste of time. I have been with very different women, for example, Maria was
very delicate, more like a model, Beth Phoenix was very strong, Emma is very
funny and Tamina was like an amazon. So you have to know how to incorporate them
and it all depends on how the personalities mingle.”
On training under Paul
Heyman: “Paul Heyman is like a wrestling
genius. His input weighs a lot for me. In training, he was observing me and he
pulled me aside and said I have an idea for you and he heard about my background
and we became more selective and it was very good and it was very fun. I believe
the people that watched, they believed 100 percent so we did our job, you
know.”
On how involved he is with his
character decisions: “In the beginning, it was more
regionalized, then it was a collaboration, and now I have more freedom for
input. They give me a skeleton, and say ‘you need to say this, this and this,
but in your way’ and I come up with what I want to say.”
