Santino Marella Reveals Scrapped Idea For WWE Network Sitcom

Santino Marella was a two-time WWE Intercontinental title winner, a United States Championship title winner, and part of the WWE Tag Team Championship. But while he was in the ring, he also yearned to become a sitcom star.

In an interview with "Ten Count," Marella recalled shooting a pilot episode for a proposed WWE Network series called "Somebody Loves Santino" that would have offered a comic version of Marella's homelife with Beth Phoenix. Marella said he "kind of wrote it" and handed Vince McMahon a copy of the work for his review.

"He watched it and he said, 'Yeah, we're gonna do it,' Marella recalled, adding that McMahon assigned a writer to create the scripts for three episodes. But an unfunny thing happened on the way to the sitcom production.

"There was this tragedy of errors – the writer got Lyme disease, and then the writer broke his hip, and then the writer's father died," he continued. "And this guy's trying to put together three funny episodes."

Marella said the output was mixed, declaring one episode was "horrible." He also said there was a difference of opinion of the series' style – the writer wanted "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-style camerawork. In contrast, he wanted the traditional approach with "canned laughter and that standard sitcom backdrop with the stairs on an angle."

Marella ruefully noted that the 2020 Netflix show starring Big Show left him feeling that it "should have been my sitcom." But he acknowledged that it would have been difficult doing the series and his wrestling assignments.

"I was disappointed, but at the same time I was also full-time on the road," he said. "We were on the road five days a week, going on European tours at once a month. So, it was okay because I was super busy at the time ... I don't think about it too much, but I believe there is a lost opportunity, for sure."