Posted on 8/05/125 by Colin Vassallo
TNA star Mike Santana sat down with Chris Van Vliet in New
York City to discuss his TNA return and how quickly it came
together, not winning the World championship at
Slammiversary and speaking to the fans after, his WWE debut
in NXT, getting to work with Shawn Michaels, his ultimate
dream match, battling addiction, how close he came to
signing with WWE back in 2019 and more!
On the main event of Slammiversary:
“What a moment. Just that whole lead-up and just the day in
general, it was special. It was special. I said it after we
went off the air, I got on the mic a little bit, because the
crowd was just like [unhappy]. I was like, there’s a riot
rumbling in here, so let me calm them down a little bit. I
told them that I wrestled in that building twice before in a
throwaway match, like four or five minutes or whatever. And
I was like, it’s crazy, I went from the throwaway to the
main event. I went from undesirable to undeniable, and what
a journey it’s been. It was like one of those full-circle
moments of, if you believe in yourself, you make anything
possible.
To have my family there and my daughter there, it was
special. The way the city came out, and the way that crowd
just reacted, and it was one of those things. I’ll be
honest, I remember the fear that I felt when I finally got
my release, and it was like, it’s over, right? Because you
can hope and wish all you want, nothing is guaranteed. I had
a plan for myself. I didn’t put a timetable on the plan. I
was like, this is the plan. This is the plan that I’m gonna
follow, whether it takes two years, five years, whatever it
is, I gotta do what I gotta do. But I remember in the back
of my head, I just prayed that I could continue giving my
daughter the life that she has and making sure that she’s
comfortable, and we don’t have to struggle. So there was a
lot of that, right? It could work, it could not, but that
fear is what made me say, I have to do it. Real quick story,
my grandmother, God bless her, she had the opportunity back
in like the early 90s, late 80s to buy a piece of property
in the Lower East Side. And because of her situation, it was
kind of unstable. She had a fear of not being able to afford
it, and she had three kids to take care of, and all these
things, so she ended up not buying it. That property today
is worth like $4 million. I remember her telling me that
story, and I was like, I will never allow fear to stop me
from anything.”
On his ultimate dream match:
“AJ Styles. Just especially being put in this position in
TNA as being that new guy and the new face, and they call me
The Standard and stuff like that. I think it’d be amazing.
Of course, there’s other people that I love to work with
over there, and I have a lot of people that I know and that
I came up on the indies with over there. But to me, AJ is
the guy.”
On how close him and Ortiz came to signing with WWE in 2019:
“So we did the first Jericho Cruise. That was the first time
that we met The Bucks and Cody and the whole Elite and
stuff. So we got to work with the Bucks and had a great
match, which probably will never see the light of day, but
that was our first initial interaction with them and meeting
them and getting to chat or whatever. The AEW thing wasn’t a
thing yet. So we just continued doing our thing in TNA, and
then Cody and I always stayed in touch. We exchanged
numbers. We all stayed in touch or whatever. I remember we
started hearing the rumblings of the AEW, and they could be
starting a new promotion, and all this stuff. So it was a
very interesting time. Then I remember being in the movie
theater, I forgot what movie I was watching, I was with my
daughter, and I got a text from Cody. You know you’re in the
movie theater, and then a text comes in, you look down, and
your eyesight is trying to adjust. So I look and I see Cody
[has messaged me], I’m like, Oh, damn, what’s going on? Such
a Cody text, by the way, I open my phone, and it goes, ‘It’s
real. It’s happening. When is your contract up?’ So then we
chatted a little bit and I gave him my word, and that was
that. That to me, is everything. So that was a big
component. Even when we were having the talks with WWE, I
remember we were sitting in a parking lot in Puerto Rico,
where we finally decided and we were going to tell WWE, hey,
we’re gonna go do this other thing. The main thing that we
said is, listen, we gave them our word.”TNA merchandise
When was your contract up?
“August 2019.”
On WWE’s reaction:
“They understood, they respected it. They understood. A big
thing with that was the schedule. We both had young kids at
the time, and we wanted to be home. We were like, best case
scenario, we go to WWE and things blow up, we’re never going
to be home. I was like, I want to see my daughter grow up.
Thankfully, things have changed; even now, the schedule is
not what it was. But back then it was like we want to see
our kids grow up, and also being a part of that legacy. They
were like, ‘Yo, you’re gonna be in the main event of the
very first Dynamite.’ No matter what I do, my name is always
gonna be there. So yeah, a big part of that was being a part
of something fresh and new, and that the name was always
gonna be there.”