Being a second-generation star in professional wrestling comes with it’s benefits and it’s detriments. In the case of Bianca Carelli, however, the former outweighs the latter by a wide margin. The daughter of former WWE superstar Santino Marella, Carelli has not only had the opportunity to travel with her father throughout his career but train with him at Ontario’s Battle Arts Academy.

We chatted about her father’s training as part of our recent chat for Love Wrestling, as well as Santino’s recent tweet directed at the WWE’s top brass drawing attention to his daughter.

“What you feel differentiates him as a trainer?” I asked Carelli early in our interview. “I feel he might be, and because he’s done so well with a lot of the quote-unquote comedy stuff before, maybe he does get overlooked [for] just how good he was as a pro wrestler. You don’t win the Intercontinental Championship on your debut if you aren’t! Is he may be under appreciated in your experience. But then, again, what what makes him a great trainer? Is that all that stuff you said before, something different?”

“That’s cool. I like that question,” the second-generation star began. “Obviously my dad’s always been hilarious. He’s a funny guy. And so, for him to have a character that really shows off how funny he really is, I really appreciate that. That’s what makes him kind of different, maybe, then other wrestlers is that he’s great on the mic, he’s charismatic, he’s fun. As much as Santino’s goofy, it’s really similar to my actual dad, Anthony. Anthony and Santino are very similar.”

“But,” she pivoted, “at the same time, my dad’s been an athlete his whole life. Wrestling, Judo football, he was on the Canadian national team. He’s gone across the world with judo. He’s an athlete, and he’s a fast learner. He trained under Rip, right, so he has great psychology. When he was at OVW, his character was actually a Russian guy, and his fight style was more like Sambo, badass, and he was great at that, too. That’s one thing that’s really good about my dad is he’s versatile, and he’s naturally a talented athlete.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say that he didn’t – like, maybe his wrestling style was overlooked,” she concluded. “Maybe by fans who have an untrained eye and can’t actually realize how fluid he is. How awesome he is. His arm drags, his hip tosses, everything. Even the way he takes moves is so well executed. He’s well trained, he’s a good athlete and I’m happy to learn from him. Not just as his daughter, but just in terms of the knowledge that he offers as a coach. It’s unbelievable knowledge.”

A Star in the Making

Of course, it’s not just in the training aspect that Marella has attempted to help his daughter. Two weeks ago, Marella tweeted a photo of his daughter directed at WWE management highlighting her abilities both inside-and-outside of the squared circle.

“When your dad’s tweeting out stuff at this point, saying, ‘hey, WWE, hey, Triple H, Stephanie McMahon. This is my daughter, she’s a f**king star,’ pay some attention at this point, right?

‘” I asked her near the conclusion of our interview.

“It’s gotta mean a lot when he’s saying that sort of stuff because again, it’s assuming on my end, but he wouldn’t be sending that out unless he believed it, right? What’s it mean to you to see him, to use the wrestling phrase, going out and putting you over like that?”

Carelli smiled.

“You know what, it did mean a lot. It really, really did,” she responded. “When I first saw it, I was like any kid when their parent is like, ‘this is my child.’ You’re gonna be like, ‘Mom! Dad.’ So, at first, I was like, ‘oh, my God, dad!’ And then, I was like, ‘awe, dad!’ He is a very emotional guy, my dad, but he will not often say how he feels, you know?

“It’s getting better, but you’re still tending towards the right side of things,” I agreed.

“Yeah. So, to see that, I was like, ‘okay, he’s proud of me.’ It was a nice moment to realize [that] wow, my dad has seen my growth. Of course, he has, and he’s seen the work I put in, and he’s proud of me. I kind of just felt like, ‘yeah, I’m a good kid. Good job!’ So it was nice, and like you said, he is almost – I wouldn’t say taking a chance, but kind of! He’s taking a chance on me like, ‘this is my daughter, here she is. I endorse her.’ I already don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially myself. But, that does kind of put something on me to say, you know what, here we go. He thinks I’m ready. I think I’m ready. Let’s do this full force. That’s why I woke up at 6 am on my Saturday, the weekends don’t exist anymore!”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above transcriptions.

In 2019, the WWE held it’s first-ever Canadian tryout in Toronto, hosting 30 of the top wrestlers from above the 49th parallel over Summerslam weekend including Kc Spinelli, Michael Richard Blais, and more.

One notable attendee was Bianca Carelli, the daughter of Santino Marella and the current Battle Arts Academy Women’s Champion. Despite having only wrestled for just over a year at that point, Carelli’s confidence in both her mic skills and work ethic gave her hope that she would stand out among even the best of the best Canada had to offer.

“I think at that point I’d had 13 matches,” Carelli commented when I asked about her experience at the tryout, “so I obviously – I was extremely green. But, at the same time, I was working out every single day, I was preparing for this. I was eating very clean. I’d been trying different diets for a year. My mind was 100% ‘let’s go, let’s do this.’ And I knew, okay, maybe I’m not gonna be the best wrestler. But you know what? I’m good on the mic and I’m willing to put in the work.”

“For me, I was kind of hoping they would see ‘oh, wow, she works really hard. She doesn’t give up.’ I know a lot of the stuff that they do in tryouts is meant to wear you down to see mentally how strong you are. That was my biggest thing was I wanted to show my mental strength, I wanted to show my toughness, that you make me run until I throw up, and I will throw up, and I will keep on running.

And then, I will throw up again and I will keep on running. You’re gonna have to call an ambulance before I stopped running. That was what I wanted to show is that that animal inside.”

“That fire?” I interjected.

“Yeah, exactly,” Carelli agreed. “But, on top of that, holy, just getting there!

I’ll never forget this moment. Once we arrived and we got led into the room where the tryout was gonna take place. I was like, ‘wow, this so cool!’ I was just taken aback. It was breathtaking. I don’t know if it was meant to be a little intimidating, but it definitely was.”

“There was a big projector screen, and they showed us this video of all these clips about the PC and WWE. It was like, ‘wow, I want to be there. More than anything, I want to be there.’ It was cool, too, because a lot of the wrestlers that were there, you see them at shows, they’re cool, they’re tough, they kick butt, they’re athletes, and even they were all like ‘phew!’ Everyone was in the same mode. Everyone was nervous and wanting it, and wanting to show their best.”

Future Opportunities

So, is the WWE still the goal for the 2nd-generation star?

“Oh, man, I just want another opportunity to show how much I’ve grown,” Carelli commented on her future goals. “Because of COVID, maybe my wrestling experience, I haven’t been able to grow it as much as I was going to before COVID hit. I had so many bookings that just got thrown out the window because of COVID. I think I’ve had – well, I know I’ve had, because I keep track.

I’ve had 32 matches now. So that’s three times the experience I think – math is not my strong point – of when I was at the tryout. Roughly three times.”

“I feel like now I would definitely do better than that component. Mic skills [are] probably the same. That fire is still burning.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes.