43 Facts About Santino Marella

1.

Santino Marella is best known for his 11-year tenure with WWE.

2.

Santino Marella is the founder of and instructor at Battle Arts Academy, a martial arts and professional wrestling training facility in Mississauga, Ontario, and the official ambassador of Judo Canada.

3.

Santino Marella made his debut on Raw during a live episode from Milan, Italy.

4.

Santino Marella was involved in a storyline where he worked as Santina Marella, Santino's twin sister.

5.

Santino Marella's character won Carelli Wrestling Observer Newsletter's award for Best Gimmick in 2007 and 2008.

6.

Santino Marella attended St Basil's Catholic Elementary School, and later Philip Pocock Catholic Secondary School and Concordia University.

7.

Santino Marella was booked to dominate opponents with stiff strikes and submission style wrestling.

8.

Santino Marella had a 10-second win over a wrestler named Dewey.

9.

Santino Marella signed a developmental contract with WWE on August 11,2006, and continued training in OVW.

10.

Santino Marella was called up to the WWE roster a month later.

11.

Santino Marella was presented as a fan that Vince McMahon selected as an opponent for Umaga.

12.

The unknown Marella scored a surprising upset, and won the WWE Intercontinental Championship with an assist from Bobby Lashley.

13.

Shortly after winning the Intercontinental title, Santino Marella feuded with Chris Masters, narrowly retaining the title in his first defenses.

14.

Santino Marella then began a gradual heel turn and became increasingly jealous of his girlfriend, Maria.

15.

Santino Marella began a publicity campaign against the WWE Films production, The Condemned, as its DVD release neared.

16.

Santino Marella was eventually confronted by the film's star, Steve Austin, who argued the film's merits before delivering a Stone Cold Stunner to Marella and hosing him and Maria with beer.

17.

Santino Marella interfered near the end of the match, pulling Maria off of a pin, and was punched by Jerry Lawler.

18.

Santino Marella then sought to become the "greatest Intercontinental champion of all the times" by beating The Honky Tonk Man's record 64-week reign.

19.

At Cyber Sunday, Santino Marella was disqualified in a title match with The Honky Tonk Man.

20.

Santino Marella was eliminated by Kane after 1.9 seconds, breaking The Warlord's 1989 record for shortest Royal Rumble appearance by a tenth of a second.

21.

Santino Marella's humour proved popular with audiences, and he turned face again before WrestleMania XXV, expressing his desire to be crowned the inaugural "Miss WrestleMania" in a 25-woman battle royale at the event.

22.

Santino Marella challenged Mickie James to a match with one arm tied behind his back, with a battle royal spot on the line, but he lost.

23.

Santino Marella successfully defended the Miss Wrestlemania title against Phoenix at Backlash in three seconds, with help from The Great Khali.

24.

At WrestleMania XXVI, Santino Marella competed in the 26-man battle royale dark match, won by Yoshi Tatsu.

25.

Santino Marella then tried to form a tag team with Vladimir Kozlov, who repeatedly refused the offer.

26.

Santino Marella was the first of seven Team Raw members eliminated, pinned by Tyler Reks.

27.

On January 30,2011, Santino Marella entered the Royal Rumble at number 37.

28.

Santino Marella was one of the final two wrestlers, before being eliminated by Alberto Del Rio.

29.

At WrestleMania XXVII, Santino Marella teamed with Big Show, Kane, and Kofi Kingston to defeat The Corre in an eight-man tag match.

30.

Later that month, Santino Marella briefly reunited with Zack Ryder, facing teams including Primo and Epico, Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks and Titus O'Neil and Darren Young.

31.

The title rematch took place the following week on SmackDown, where Santino Marella failed in his title challenge.

32.

Successively Santino Marella was eliminated by Wade Barrett from the battle-royal.

33.

Santino Marella then took a leave of absence due to a neck injury.

34.

Santino Marella returned on January 27,2013, at the Royal Rumble, entering the Royal Rumble match at number 5 before being the first man eliminated by Cody Rhodes.

35.

Santino Marella then began a feud with The Real Americans, then Santino Marella began to align himself with The Great Khali and Hornswoggle in this feud.

36.

On September 16,2014, Santino Marella underwent successful surgery on his neck.

37.

Santino Marella made several appearances throughout 2014 and 2015, including one appearance on the November 24 episode of Raw to promote his new movie, Jingle All the Way 2 with co-star Larry the Cable Guy, serving as the Guest General Manager for the December 5 episode of SmackDown and hosted his own Royal Rumble lottery on the 20 January, exclusively on the WWE Network.

38.

The next night, on Super SmackDown, Santino Marella appeared in a backstage segment.

39.

On July 22,2019, Santino Marella appeared at the Raw Reunion show in a backstage skit.

40.

On January 13,2023, at Impact Wrestling's Hard to Kill PPV, Carelli made his return under his previous ringname Santino Marella, performing as the on-screen authority figure "Director of Authority".

41.

On June 17,2017, Santino Marella announced that he would come out of retirement for one last match for Destiny World Wrestling, which operates out of his Battle Arts Academy facilities, on August 27.

42.

Santino Marella had announced that he would be teaming up with Alberto El Patron against RJ City and Stone Rockwell.

43.

In July 2019, Santino Marella returned to the ring at a Battle Arts Academy show, wrestling in an MMA inspired gimmick.