Dont let his ridiculous and over-the-top gimmick fool you; Anthony Carelli is a trained MMA fighter and runs his own gym. In other words, hes a lot more dangerous than his past storylines suggest. That said, on TV he played the childish comedy act that had to, among other things, pretend that the cobra puppet on his arm was a real snake and that it could be charmed. Other crazy things he had to do include growing a uni-brow, cross-dress as his own twin sister, Santina, get humiliated by Jimmy Kimmel and cousin Sal, and earning the dubious distinction for being eliminated from the Royal Rumble match in the shortest time in history (1.9 seconds). All of those things are incredibly embarrassing, and one would have to have an incredible amount of guts to accept such ludicrous creative directions. A person with a lot of personal pride would never accept something as insane as wearing a tutu and winning the Ms. WrestleMania award. But Santino did what was best for the company and went along with the over-the-top shtick. And the best part was, in some instances, he was so committed to the creative directions given to him that he was genuinely funny.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
