Santino Marella credits Dusty Rhodes with giving him advice that created the Milan Miracle.
Marella spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about bringing his infamous WWE gimmick to life. Prior to debuting on WWE RAW as Santino Marella, Anthony Carelli was working in WWE developmental as Boris Alexiev, a Russian MMA fighter gimmick. He recalled Dusty Rhodes telling him to say yes when WWE asked if he could do something, because it could lead to an opportunity.
Marella got a call ahead of the April 16, 2007, episode of RAW in Milan, Italy, and a WWE official asked if he could speak Italian. Marella knew the answer, and the rest is history.
“I got a phone call: ‘Can you speak Italian?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ Literally a month before, Dusty Rhodes had told us, ‘If they ever ask you if you can do something, the answer is yes. Then figure it out later.’ If they ask if you can ride a unicycle, you say yes—then go learn to ride one. That was fresh in my mind. So when they asked if I spoke Italian, I said yes.”
Santino Marella faked it until he made it
Marella said that he actually did know some Italian, but he wasn’t fluent in the language. He retained some of what he’d learned from an Italian tourist cassette tape and bluffed his way through the rest.
“Then [WWE] said, ‘Okay, you’re going to fly out tomorrow. You might debut the next day.’ I got my passport Saturday, flew out Sunday, walked around Milan—first time I’d really been in Italy. Monday morning, meet on the bus at 9 a.m., head to the venue. Arn Anderson was coming out of the production meeting. I’d met him before in OVW. He said, ‘You’re having a good day.’ They told me what was happening, and I’m like, ‘What?’ Suddenly, I was nervous. You don’t want to mess it up. But it was awesome.”
Santino Marella used the opportunity to get in touch with his Italian roots. He said he ultimately learned the language and got good enough to do live TV and radio interviews in Italy.
“I’m actually going to Italy in a couple of months, so I need to brush up. But I got my dual citizenship, an Italian passport—my father is from Italy. That side of the family is very in tune with the culture: food, customs, holidays, making wine, sausages, gardening. We grew up pretty Italian.”
Santino Marella currently works for TNA Wrestling, where he is feuding with a group of NXT stars that now includes his daughter, Arianna Grace.
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