Carelli tells his side of the story.
Former two-time WWE Intercontinental Champion Anthony Carelli or better known to some as "Santino Marella" was the most recent guest on Busted Open Radio with Dave LaGreca and WWE Hall Of Famer Mark Henry. Carelli discussed his current role in IMPACT Wrestling, the 'Battle Arts' training academy that he runs in Canada and more topics were discussed. As the conversation rolled on, Mark Henry asked Carelli about the situation with Jim Cornette at an OVW show from years ago.
Carelli went on to tell the story of why he and Jim Cornette had issues with one another which led to that moment in Detroit where they got into one another's faces.
"Yeah, so I got there [OVW] and I was in the beginners class for a month. Mike Mondo is actually my coach there and you know, getting shoved in so, I was in the suburban lodge for a few weeks or so and I just got an apartment, just set it up and they go, ‘You’ve now graduated to the intermediate class’ which is the practice class." He said. "So I go to practice and lets say it's a Tuesday, and the OVW television tapings were on Wednesday so the class is like, ‘Welcome to the class. Tomorrow is the TV taping.’ We come and help out or whatever and we were allowed to watch the show. I said, ‘All right, wicked’. So, and my daughter was down, she was visiting for the month. So we show up and they go, ‘Yeah, okay you guys can sit over there’ and there’s a little section. Not quite in the audience, but behind the guardrail, and Boogeyman was debuting--he [was debuting] his new look, new costume and I remember that they did not calculate the heat of the ring lights and it was kind of melting some of his makeup a little bit and his horn--one of his horns kept sliding down and he kind of fixed it and he's trying to stay in character and his horn’s sliding down and he’s fixing it so, there was some snickers from the audience so I know Cornette was about to snap anyway and actually, if you go to YouTube and punch in--I think its 'Boogeyman/Santino incident' and fast-forward right to the last three or four minutes, you can see him come out and he debuts."
Carelli explained why the incident between himself and Cornette transpired the way that it did and it turned out that it was a misunderstanding between the two because Cornette felt as if Santino was treating The Boogeyman as a joke.
“Now what I didn’t know was [that] he was supposed to exit out of the emergency door behind all the students." Carelli shared. "There’s an emergency exit. So he’s walking and all of a sudden he truns abruptly towards us and I… you can see in the video [that] I kind of reach for my daughter cause’ I’m thinking she’s gonna s**t her pants, and then I kind of sit back and smile and I think, ‘Okay, this is gonna be a good memory for her and she’s gonna be startled’ and Boogeyman looked wicked. The costume was intense, top-notch, it was scary." He said. "If you were looking out your window at night time and that kinda just came into the picture, Oh my Lord. But, yeah, so I had a smirk on my face and that for some reason just set him [Jim Cornette] over the edge so Boogeyman, he ended up kinda shaking the guardrail and we all jumped out of the way and he went out the emergency door and referee Goose [Aaron] Mahoney and I still remember the look on his face. He didn’t want to do what he was doing. He felt bad, he’s like, ‘Were you sitting here with your back against there?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah’ and he goes, ‘Can you come in the back please?’ and I’m like, ‘Ahh, they like something I did’.
I thought maybe they liked the way I sold it, and I come back there and Cornette just comes--beelines towards me saying, ‘You think this is God damn joke?’ Of course he was using some swear words but… and he gives me this slap and, immediately a million things are going through my head." Carelli stated. "I look down the hallway and I see all of the other boys sticking their heads out of the locker room. They’re shaking their heads like, ‘Ah, this poor guy. He can’t do anything’ and ‘Cornette’s taking advantage of somebody else’ and I remember thinking, ‘God I just got my apartment, I just got my house. I really don’t wanna hit this guy and… I’m sure he’s connected in this town and they can have me deported and kicked out and all this stuff and then he continues to go off and he does a little paintbrush back and forth and I’m looking at him--eye contact like I’m trying to speak through my eyes and let him know that in any other situation this is not gonna go down like this, but this is… there’s nothing I can do and that was really it in terms on the initial incident.” Carelli explained.
Anthony Carelli did state on this podcast that he will not be a regular fixture on IMPACT Wrestling and speaking of IMPACT, head over to Fightful's coverage of last night's edition of IMPACT TV to read up on what went down during the IMPACT World Championship match.
If you are going to use the quotes above, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.
