9. Paul Heyman Booked Him As A Russian Shoot Fighter Named Boris
When Paul Heyman became the booker of Ohio Valley Wrestling (WWE's development system) in 2006 he saw a lot of potential in Santino. In fact, he booked him as a Russian shoot fighter named Boris Alexiev. Santino is Italian, but Heyman probably figured he could pull off the Russian look well enough, so that's what he became. Heyman had a good history of booking guys as shoot fighters because that's how Taz was booked in ECW in the late 1990s. He became the World Champion there. Since Santino had a fighting background it made sense that he would be given a gimmick like that. He did pretty well as Boris. He ended up winning the OVW TV Title and perhaps would have went on to become the OVW Heavyweight Champion if he didn't get called up to the main roster in April of 2007. The Santino gimmick wasn't even used before he was on the main roster. He was Boris. It likely surprised OVW fans when they saw him only as Santino when he arrived on Raw.