Santino Marella talks Arianna Grace and how he knew she was going to be a big deal from a young age.
Wrestling has more than one royal family, and one of those families is the Carelli family. Santino Marella, real name Anthony Carelli, has a daughter in NXT known as Arianna Grace. Throughout her short stint with the brand, Grace has already competed against the likes of Indi Hartwell and Roxanne Perez.
In a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Marella noted that he recognized Grace's stardom from a very young age, which was seemingly a big spark for him to pursue a full time career in wrestling.
“Yeah, so she was identified young. When she was a child, everyone would come up to me and tell me that [she was] gonna be something or that she’s a superstar or that she can do anything. She was just articulate and her personality was incredible right… so now all of the sudden, I have all this pressure like I have to be able to nourish this. I have to be able to get her where she needs to go, she has all of this potential and this talent. If she doesn’t become a superstar, it’s because I dropped the ball. So we had some very serious conversations when she was eight years old and I’m like ‘You were born to be a superstar. I don’t know how to take you to Hollywood, I don’t know how to get you there but what I can do is I’m pretty good at this wrestling thing. WWE, they make movies. WWE Studios. I’m gonna go become a professional wrestler and then we’ll make those connections and I’ll pull you in.’ That was the plan, the 18 year plan we called it. I had to go, I left to go to Japan for a year and I went to Kentucky for a couple years and it was hard for us, very hard. But, it paid off when she got signed, not when I got signed.”
Grace is currently away from the NXT brand, as she is recovering from an injury she sustained back in October 2022.
Earlier this year, Marella joined IMPACT Wrestling and became the company's on-screen Director Of Authority. Fans can see Marella's comments on joining the promotion by clicking here.
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