Former WWE Intercontinental Champion Santino Marella recently opened up about the turning point that dramatically changed his WWE trajectory—his heel turn in 2007, which earned a major thumbs up from Vince McMahon.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Marella reflected on the crowd’s early rejection of his babyface run following his debut victory over Umaga as a planted fan from the audience.
“As you know, the WWE fans do not like to be force-fed anything. They will spit it out. They were being force-fed this new guy who was in the audience; he beat Chris Masters, and he beat Shelton Benjamin… They’re like, ‘Yeah right. BS, don’t tell us to like this guy.’”
Things came to a head after a decisive loss to Umaga where the crowd turned entirely against him:
“They wanted Umaga to kill this guy. Then I guess they had the conversation where they said, okay, the audience is not kind of accepting this. Let’s turn him bad guy, I guess, and if that doesn’t work, maybe see you later.”
The character shift turned everything around, and more importantly, McMahon loved it.
“The moment I turned into a bad guy and complained with the accent, apparently Vince popped. He’s funny. He thought it was because as soon as I turned bad and I got the mic as a bad guy, had the mic every week, guest commentary, in-ring promos. So I popped the right guy, and I was given the ball.”
Marella remembered being advised by Michael Hayes, who said:
“Every promo is like a first down… Then you work up to getting in the ring with Stone Cold Steve Austin… Can you cross the goal line? Now we’re watching.”
He recalled a particularly validating backstage moment after a successful segment:
“I remember backstage, Vince looked at me, and he went like [nods], like he just went up a level. And I was like, ‘Oh, I know what that means, man.’”
Marella would go on to become one of WWE’s most entertaining midcard acts, capturing multiple titles and delivering countless comedic segments throughout his run.
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more behind-the-scenes stories and wrestling interviews.
