Posted on 6/03/125 by Colin Vassallo
Santino Marella joined Insight with Chris Van Vliet for a
long, one hour and 17 minute interview where he talks about
joining TNA as the Director of Authority and being able to
keep his WWE name, the Cobra vs. Socko spot with Mick Foley
in the Royal Rumble, a possible Hall of Fame induction and
more!
On becoming TNA’s Director of Authority:
“Scott D’Amore kind of asked me if I was interested a few
times, and it’s just timing wasn’t right. Then coming out of
COVID, I’m like, you know what? I think it’s time.
Everything kind of lined up, talked to my wife and we went
back in. So anyway, I got a call from Robert Evans, who was
one of the writers at the time, and he had this vision of
the Director of Authority. We started talking about that FBI
kind of [look]. In the beginning, I was wearing tactical
pants, and I had like an FBI jacket, which someone scooped
up. I don’t know [who it was]. We had some TNA shows at
Battle Arts back in the day, and during cleanup, someone
scooped it. So, yeah, it was one of one. Then we switched to
the tracksuits, which came in super handy, it’s one of our
sponsors. But being able to wear a uniform on a weekly
basis, it just saves so much decision-making. What am I
going to wear? I have a uniform. I wear the tracksuit with
the badge, it’s good for now.”
On being able to keep his WWE name:
“So that was actually almost bigger news than me appearing
on TNA, was the fact that I was Santino Marella. So in 2021,
I imagine the COVID confusion or whatever, there were people
getting fired and hired, and it seemed like it was team
Hunter and team Vince, and they were changing regimes or
whatever. Somebody didn’t renew the trademark. So Scott
D’Amore, as a habit, because if he’s getting a former WWE
guy, he kind of checks the trademark to see if they’re
available, because he has to get creative and come up with a
name. If it’s not Fandango, it’s Dango or something that’s
legally not going to be too close to the intellectual
property. He checked, and all of a sudden he goes, damn,
Santino Marella is available. So he bought it. It’s not as
simple as you can just buy it and it’s yours. There’s a case
that they created the character, they developed the
character. It’s still on their library. I mean, there’s
still tons of Santino stuff in the library. But when it’s
library use, I think it’s not considered like current use,
because it’s from a library. So they sent an email or a
phone call to Scott, and they say, ‘Yeah, you’re using our
intellectual property.’ And Scott’s like, ‘Actually, I own
the trademark.’ So they’re like, ‘Let me get back to you.’
It’s kind of sitting there for a while. Then they filed an
extension to the time they can appeal it, and then when
Scott was no longer with TNA, Ariel [Shnerer], in hopes of
having a good relationship with WWE, kind of just gave it
back to them. So they own it, but I’m not sure if a part of
the deal was we’ll give it back to you but can we use it?
And we’ve been using it.”
On the Cobra vs. Socko spot with Mick Foley:
“It was funny, because I kind of pitched the whole thing to
him, and he was so giddy during my pitch, he was loving it.
Anyway, I wanted to do the whole back into each other, a
couple of gunfighters in the Wild West, and then kind of
turn and then see each other, and kind of get ready. We
didn’t time it out, but it took us the exact same amount of
time to put our respective socks on, and then we kind of did
that. It was perfect timing. Then we circled, there was
other guys in the ring, but everyone just kind of got small.
You can see Big Show just watching and enjoying it. And
yeah, then we did the battle. We were supposed to do a
little more. You know like in movies, wizards will have rays
kind of hitting each other, they’ll go back. We were
supposed to kind of do that across the ring but Cody jumped
in a little early, and I was like, we had more planned. But
anyway, it was still memorable, because people understood
immediately what was happening. Oh, damn, It’s sock versus
sock, and he’s the right guy. That was actually probably one
of my most fun things.”
On fans calling for Hall of Fame induction in the future:
“Well, it depends what you go to wrestling for. If you want
macho tough guys, and some people just don’t like comedy,
they want to see slobber knockers each and every match. It’s
pretty polarized. I think the vast majority of people
appreciate the comedy, but there are people that they have
no place for comedy.”