Marella turns funny man
Perhaps the funniest man in wrestling, the Milan Miracle Santino Marella has gone from being an underdog champion to the official comedian for the WWE, trading in his Intercontinental belt to become the laughing boy of the squared circle.
Marella, real name Anthony Carelli, 33, of New Jersey (not Italy although he is of Italian heritage) hit the WWE with a bang early this year during a tour of Italy when he was ‘picked at random’ from the crowd by Vince McMahon to answer a challenge issued by Umaga to take on anyone in the arena that night in Milan, Italy. With the help of Bobby Lashley, who was feuding with Umaga at the time, Marella was able to win the Intercontinental title in front of his ‘hometown’ marking his joining of the RAW roster.
In actuality, Marella had been working with Ohio Valley Wrestling (the former farm league for WWE) since 2005 where he had played the role of Boris Alexiev, a Russian mixed martial arts fighter who used submission wrestling tactics to beat his opponents. The identity as an MMA specialist was one Marella was familiar with since he, being a judo expert, fought in mixed martial arts in Japan before inking his contract with WWE in 2006. The WWE had actually planned to use him as a Russian MMA expert before seizing on the plan to bring him up during their Italian tour.
While his win over Umaga was exciting for the fans in Milan, WWE fans never really bought him as a true champion, prompting WWE to bail on his good-guy, underdog character, and turn him heel after his character was squashed by Umaga over the summer.
Since that time, Marella has turned his character into the most comedic character in WWE, going from a wrestler no one cared about to one most fans want to see every Monday night, if for nothing else than to see someone knock him out.
With WWE Diva Maria by his side, Marella has turned himself into a jealous, arrogant heel who is condescending to everyone, a wrestler fans love to see get squashed. His mispronunciations of Stone Cold’s redneck catch phrases with his fake Italian accent are hilarious.
His comedic prowess hit an all-time high the night Stone Cold Steve Austin confronted him in the ring two weeks ago for Marella’s constant downing of his movie ‘The Condemned’ over the past few weeks. Marella took the Stone Cold Stunner better than anyone ever, doing a near faint job when Stone Cold bounced him off the mat before dousing both he and Maria with beer from a Budweiser truck in a re-run of the angle involving the Rock and the beer truck years ago (although I bet Bud paid a pretty penny to change Austin’s beer preference during the primetime appearance).
While comedic wrestlers rarely hold the gold, they do hold the attention of the audience and, consequently, their job security so long as they stay funny. Look at Showtime Eric Young (formerly of Team Canada) whose act of being startled when his pyro goes off behind him never gets old. He gets some of the loudest pops of anyone in the show as he will do anything for a laugh.
Of course, the downside of basing one’s character solely on comedy is what happens when the audience stops laughing. Look no further than Nick Dinsmore (Eugene of WWE) to see how they get put out to pasture when the laughs stop coming. His character as a dimwitted clown got old with the audience real quick and despite the fact Dinsmore was a very good tactical wrestler, he was given his release. The same was true of Dustin Rhodes in his character Goldust. When he turned Goldust totally comedic and started doing his bit with Booker T, Goldust was basically condemned to failure when the laughs stopped coming. He was also released by WWE but has found new life as Black Reign on TNA.
The best idea for a wrestler nowadays is to have something besides comedy to fall back on. In the case of Marella, he does have some good wrestling skills but as we saw early in his WWE career, he really isn’t over with the audience without the clown act. For Marella, it could be working without a net because if the laughs dry up, even Maria’s beautiful legs can’t save him.