Santino Marella discusses his daughter's journey to WWE.
In recent months as part of the WWE-TNA partnership, Arianna Grace has been seen interacting with her father and authority figure in TNA, Santino Marella. The pair both have a penchant for comedy in wrestling, with Grace routinely being part of several comedic segments on NXT TV since making her debut with the brand.
While speaking to Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Santino spoke about Arianna's WWE tryouts, noting how during her second tryout, she blew WWE away.
"She's something special. She was identified from a young child as just exceptional with regards to her speech, her presence. Luckily, she turned out pretty too, because that's kind of a you're born with that or not, right? I mean, you can work on it, I guess. But she's tall, she's athletic. So when she finished her degree, we kind of, for the first time ever, we never talked about it before she finished university. And I was like, do you want to do this? She was like, you actually think I can do this? Of course, this is not rocket science. It just takes dedication and hard work, which anyone can do. You don't have to be naturally gifted to be a hard worker and dedicated. So when you have these natural, raw abilities and this potential, and you apply. All she had to do, in my opinion, was be the hardest worker in the room, and she became the hardest worker in the room. So her first tryout, she was not ready, and she didn't get hired. Then the switch went off, she packed up, moved to Orlando. She was training at multiple schools, busting her ass, got in great shape. And then when she received another tryout, she just blew them away. She was the talk of the tryout, and she got hired from that, she was just in shape, and this time she was ready. So it was no freebies. When you're a second-generation talent, the idea of receiving a freebie is a horrible thing to be accused of. Some people will also understand that you're going to be given an opportunity, but it's up to you to capitalize on the opportunity. I remember talking with Cody when he was younger, that was one of the worst things you could say to him ever, was you're only here because your dad. So he became super hard working to eliminate and remove the potential for someone to even say that. I think he's done a great job, working so hard that no one could say that to him anymore."
Elsewhere in the same interview, Santino shared how the Santina character was only supposed to last one night. You can read more about that here.
