Top TNA star Mike Santana fell short of winning the TNA World Title at Slammiversary in front of his home crowd and family at UBS Arena in New York; while he put on a brave face afterwards, Santana clearly wasn’t happy with the decision and let it be known.
While speaking with Scott Fishman of TV Insider, Mike Santana talks about the recently-released IMMERSED documentary and how it delved into his personal life, as well as capturing the letdown of not winning the World Title at Slammiversary, and how he’s approaching this match with Frankie Kazarian.
For me, pro wrestling is at its best when you can dig into a good story and the lines of reality are blurred. I think the two-part Immersed documentary featuring you really adds another layer of connection to the audience.
“Agreed. I think the documentary helps people connect even more to what I’m doing and just following along with the story. It’s a story of real life. I think in a business where so many people play characters it’s refreshing to see someone who people can look at and say oh man I know this guy personally and could be that guy. My whole thing is making people believe not only in my story but in the reality of anything that is possible. It doesn’t matter where you come from or where you’ve been through when you work hard at something you make it a reality.
It’s awesome I get to be the beacon for that and at the forefront of telling those stories. That’s something I want to continue doing. I think AMC presents the perfect opportunity to do that. The documentary, a lot of passion and hard work went into putting that together not just on my end but the entire team’s end. The production team that worked on it did a great job. I got to watch it back and was like, “Wow, it’s almost unreal watching all that stuff.” I still find it weird watching myself on TV or watching these documentary pieces. It’s just a real life story.”
Catch the IMMERSED documentary on the TNA + app.
TNA returned to running events 4 weeks after Santana was successful in winning the World Title at the Bound For Glory PPV, and was immediately booked to lose it that same night. Santana defended it against Ryan Nemeth, but was beaten down by a group of NXT talent, leaving him battered for Frankie Kazarian to take his opportunity and use the Call Your Shot for the World Title. Frankie was victorious and began his first reign as World champion that night.
Many fans weren’t happy about Kazarian taking the title from you right after you won it. Talk about the story you’re telling with Kazarian going into that rematch.
“As far as Frankie goes, he is a day one TNA guy. Someone I respect and have a lot of history with. We both came from similar situations in a sense where we weren’t happy somewhere, bet on ourselves, and that bet paid off. Now we’re going to go head-to-head for the TNA World Title on a major pay-per-view in a new era for the company. We got all that going. I think like you said about me losing the title in the fashion I did, it got people behind me even more. Now people are clamoring to see this title run. What’s the initial thing we do? We tell stories. I think this is all part of the journey and story overall. It’s just getting started.”
H/T Scott Fishman, TV Insider.
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