The Future for Santino Marella

Recently on Raw, we saw a hilarious segment featuring Santino Marella having tea with Sheamus and Kozlov. This is undoubtedly the funniest moment in recent memory and showed the mic skills of Santino. Yet his character remains that of a glorified jobber. Which got me thinking, can Santino be a top star?

I believe he could be. The person most comparable to Santino at the moment is the Miz. Miz is good, but not the best in the ring. He is improving every day. He can work a mic, and can generate a reaction from the crowd. Same for Santino. So why has Santino fallen to his roll while Miz is a future champion?

There is no reason I can see. The biggest difference is Miz is a top heel and Santino is a fan favorite, regardless of his win/loss record. I see his bumbling character can come in handy sometimes. He can appear weak and allow a new hero to make the save, as happened with John Morrison the last two weeks. But the weak bumbling person should not be someone with Santino’s abilities. NXT rookies could fit this role perfectly and give them times to build up their character, mic skills, and image. Also, a pairing with a new friend or ally in a star could help both people involved.

So where should Santino’s character head now? He should slowly move up from being comic relief to an actual wrestler with a decent win record. This can easily start in the tag-team division. Kozlov would make sense as a partner and he is a brute force wrestler. The two could go on to have an impressive record, even if Kozlov is seen as carrying the team.

Depending on the reemergence of tag-teams or quality of the team, a split could eventually occur. This would most likely be months away. To keep both Santino and Kozlov as faces, it could occur on the draft where they are simply split to different brands. After the split, Santino could go on to feud for the Intercontinental Championship or the United States Championship.

The biggest thing is to simply remove the stigma that Santino can’t win. With the simple ideas above, there is no reason Santino can’t rise through the ranks. Keep the humorous segments, give him more time on the mic, but have his matches end in victory from time to time.