TNA World Champion Mike Santana appeared on Rosenberg Radio to discuss various topics, including winning the World Title at Bound For Glory in October 2025.
Santana said, “Well, gaining it — as you know man, we’ve known each other a long time. And you know, just my story of what I’ve been through to to get to where I’m at today. I dealt with the injury. While I was out with injury, I was also dealing with my addiction issues. And thankfully, I put myself through rehab and just that whole experience, right? But I think the beauty of it was that I was able to use all that to get me to to this moment, right? And it’s like, once you change your mindset, everything changes. Like, before I used to use a lot of my struggles and a lot of the things that I went through as excuses for the spiral, you know what I mean? And now I use it as a source of energy, as a source of positivity and something to put towards getting me to where I want to get to. But yeah man, like having that moment of course with my daughter, it was a huge moment. Like I said before, that first title win was my way of saying ‘thank you’ to her for saving my life, and also ‘thank you’ to my family and my friends and all the supporters that helped get me to that point.”
On losing the title soon after:
“Again going back to the struggles, I’ve learned that I thrive in the trenches. When I’m going through the worst things is when I learn the most. So I looked at that obstacle as an opportunity to learn as much as I could. And also when you get to that point in in this business, and as you guys know like, you have to change your mindset. Just peeling back the curtain a little bit, when you’re a top guy and you’re put in that position, you got to change your mindset. And it’s not all about you. Now it’s about business and what’s going to be best for all parties involved. And also at the same time it’s like, ‘Okay, I’m going to do what’s best for business, but how is this going to benefit me in the long run?’ And those were all things that I had to take into account in that day, in that moment. But going through that experience and just going through all of that really showed me the work that I put in on myself, the work that I put in on my mental and just all those things, you know what I mean? Honestly it was a low, but at the same time it was a high. And I knew that that moment, I was going to use to to climb. And then here we are. first the AMC premiere, TNA Impact huge moment. The world was watching, and it paid off.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
