Mike Santana Addresses Nearly Signing With WWE, When His TNA Contract Expires & Potential AJ Styles Dream Match
Mike Santana appeared as a guest on this week’s episode of INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the TNA Wrestling star spoke about being in the main event of TNA Slammiversary 2025, his ultimate dream match, how close he and Ortiz came to signing with WWE back in 2019, as well as when his TNA contract is set to expire.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also below is the complete video archive of the show.
On the main event of Slammiversary: “What a moment. Just that whole lead-up and just the day in general, it was special. It was special. I said it after we went off the air, I got on the mic a little bit, because the crowd was just like [unhappy]. I was like, there’s a riot rumbling in here, so let me calm them down a little bit. I told them that I wrestled in that building twice before in a throwaway match, like four or five minutes or whatever. And I was like, it’s crazy, I went from the throwaway to the main event. I went from undesirable to undeniable, and what a journey it’s been. It was like one of those full-circle moments of, if you believe in yourself, you make anything possible. To have my family there and my daughter there, it was special. The way the city came out, and the way that crowd just reacted, and it was one of those things. I’ll be honest, I remember the fear that I felt when I finally got my release, and it was like, it’s over, right? Because you can hope and wish all you want, nothing is guaranteed. I had a plan for myself. I didn’t put a timetable on the plan. I was like, this is the plan. This is the plan that I’m gonna follow, whether it takes two years, five years, whatever it is, I gotta do what I gotta do. But I remember in the back of my head, I just prayed that I could continue giving my daughter the life that she has and making sure that she’s comfortable, and we don’t have to struggle. So there was a lot of that, right? It could work, it could not, but that fear is what made me say, I have to do it. Real quick story, my grandmother, God bless her, she had the opportunity back in like the early 90s, late 80s to buy a piece of property in the Lower East Side. And because of her situation, it was kind of unstable. She had a fear of not being able to afford it, and she had three kids to take care of, and all these things, so she ended up not buying it. That property today is worth like $4 million. I remember her telling me that story, and I was like, I will never allow fear to stop me from anything.”
On his ultimate dream match: “AJ Styles. Just especially being put in this position in TNA as being that new guy and the new face, and they call me The Standard and stuff like that. I think it’d be amazing. Of course, there’s other people that I love to work with over there, and I have a lot of people that I know and that I came up on the indies with over there. But to me, AJ is the guy.”
On how close him and Ortiz came to signing with WWE in 2019: “So we did the first Jericho Cruise. That was the first time that we met The Bucks and Cody and the whole Elite and stuff. So we got to work with the Bucks and had a great match, which probably will never see the light of day, but that was our first initial interaction with them and meeting them and getting to chat or whatever. The AEW thing wasn’t a thing yet. So we just continued doing our thing in TNA, and then Cody and I always stayed in touch. We exchanged numbers. We all stayed in touch or whatever. I remember we started hearing the rumblings of the AEW, and they could be starting a new promotion, and all this stuff. So it was a very interesting time. Then I remember being in the movie theater, I forgot what movie I was watching, I was with my daughter, and I got a text from Cody. You know you’re in the movie theater, and then a text comes in, you look down, and your eyesight is trying to adjust. So I look and I see Cody [has messaged me], I’m like, Oh, damn, what’s going on? Such a Cody text, by the way, I open my phone, and it goes, ‘It’s real. It’s happening. When is your contract up?’ So then we chatted a little bit and I gave him my word, and that was that. That to me, is everything. So that was a big component. Even when we were having the talks with WWE, I remember we were sitting in a parking lot in Puerto Rico, where we finally decided and we were going to tell WWE, hey, we’re gonna go do this other thing. The main thing that we said is, listen, we gave them our word.”
On WWE’s reaction: “They understood, they respected it. They understood. A big thing with that was the schedule. We both had young kids at the time, and we wanted to be home. We were like, best case scenario, we go to WWE and things blow up, we’re never going to be home. I was like, I want to see my daughter grow up. Thankfully, things have changed; even now, the schedule is not what it was. But back then it was like we want to see our kids grow up, and also being a part of that legacy. They were like, ‘Yo, you’re gonna be in the main event of the very first Dynamite.’ No matter what I do, my name is always gonna be there. So yeah, a big part of that was being a part of something fresh and new, and that the name was always gonna be there.”
On when his current TNA Wrestling contract is up: “August 2019.”