There are some wrestlers who go through a public retirement and get to say goodbye to the fans. However, there are many who just disappear from the public eye for a while and then call it a career. Santino Marella is one such star who never had a proper retirement ceremony and he just settled into the life after WWE. Though, according to the former WWE star himself, he is very content with his run with the company.
The former US champion recently had an interview with The A2theK Wrestling Show. Among other things he was asked what led to his retirement from wrestling. Marella revealed that he had a double cervical fusion surgery. Unfortunately, his neck didn’t heal as expected, leading to the end of his full time wrestling career:
“It was my neck surgery. So I had my first cervical fusion. I had a double cervical fusion right off the bat. The goal was to come back and then a few months after, they noticed that one of the screws was coming out. Then at the end, at the three-month mark, one screw had completely come out, and one had come halfway out.
So they had to go back in and take out the titanium. I think going back in the second time, kind of messed things up, cutting through the scared tissue. I just never got well enough to a point where I can come back and wrestle on a full-time basis. I can have a match here and there, but to do it properly, on a full time.”
‘It Was All Good’: Santino Marella
After not having made any TV appearances since the previous December, the Canadian Star was released from his WWE contract in May 2016. This marked the unofficial end of his full-time career in wrestling. Though Santino Marella is not bitter about how things ended. He explained that while he did try to rehab his neck for a couple years after his surgery, he is content with how his WWE career turned out to be:
“To be honest, I was kind of over it. I just wanted to come home a little bit. I opened up Battle Arts Academy in 2013. I actually retired in 2016. So, the last two years was me trying to get back in shape. Not physically, my neck and my back, to get back in shape to be able to come back and perform but it just never happened. It was all good.
I had a very full life before WWE and I’ve had a very full life after WWE. It was a great chapter. Absolutely an incredible chapter. Up until the point that I retired, it was a quarter of my life, right? It’s funny, It’s not even my most recent chapter. Next year, 2023 – Battles Arts is having its 10-year anniversary. Then the last four years I have had this new family. That’s my most recent chapter. So wrestling’s kind of a few chapters back now.”
You can check out Santino Marella’s full interview in the video below:
