Former WWE Superstar Santino Marella was a recent guest on the Stories With Brisco & Bradshaw podcast where he spoke about how he came up with his Cobra sock gimmick and the advice John Cena gave to him in regards to the gimmick. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Santino Marella on where he got the idea for the Cobra: “I was at a bar, just drinking at a bar. And some guy, his name is Taro, he just showed me this thing where he just transform his arm into this little snake puppet thing. And I didn’t even get it at the time. I looked at my buddy and I go ‘what is that?’ ‘Ah, it’s just a funny thing he does, you know?’ I said ‘okay.’ And then the next time I saw him, he asked me ‘do you remember how to do it? You do this thing, then you hold and you do a little wooden puppet.’ And you know, we laughed about it again and that was it.”
Marella on John Cena telling him to keep the move: “Fast forward like five years, and I’m at a house show in Atlanta. I think I was wrestling Chavo or Carlito. And I said ‘you know what? I’m going to try something in my comeback. I’m going to do jab, jab, jab, this arm transformation, hit you with it, turn away, and I’ll do a schoolboy.’ And it’s funny, I used to call it the ‘Schoolboy From Hell’ actually. So I did it at a live event. I told John Cena, I said ‘hey watch this, I’m going to try something.’ And I did the Cobra and the audience laughed, like, the first time. I stood there, made this face, did the whole thing, hit him with it, rolled him. I came back and he goes ‘I would keep that if I were you, that was funny as hell.’”
On Vince McMahon asking for it to be used on Raw: “Regal bumped off it to cover. That was the first time it kind of became a finishing maneuver, you know? It was only on live events. And then one day I was at RAW, and Ricky Steamboat was the producer. I was wrestling Zack Ryder and he goes ‘you’re going over with the Cobra.’ And I’m like ‘Cobra?’ He goes ‘yeah, Vince wants to see the Cobra.’ And I’m like ‘Vince knows about the Cobra?’ And he goes ‘yeah, he’s been reading the reports and he wants to see the Cobra.’ I was like ‘ah okay.’”
On the move getting over with the fans: “Anyway, I did the Cobra. Three weeks, it took three weeks of doing it on television before I would gesture for it. And I remember almost being blown away like in shock. I would see in the corner, like in my peripheral vision, the audience jumping out of their seats, like, screaming. For the Cobra? Are you guys okay? You guys are settling. There’s not really much to it, you know?”
