Born Anthony Carelli, Santino Marella hails from Ontario, Canada. He has practiced Judo at Shin Bu Kan and has been competing since he was younger. Before he signed with WWE in 2006, he was an MMA fighter in Japan for several years.
In January 2007, Santino won the OVW Television Championship and defeated Bad Kompany (Mike Kruel and Shawn Osbourne). Kruel snatched the title from him but lost to Santino in a match in March. He then lost the title to Shawn Spears.
Debuting on WWE on April 2007, Santino was named such by Vince McMahon in honor of Gorilla Monsoon. The story was that Santino was chosen by McMahon to wrestle Umaga (Eddie Fatu) for his WWE Intercontinental Championship. Santino later defeated Umaga with some help from Bobby Lashley. He then began a feud with Chris Masters, whom he defeated on May 2007, via a cradle roll-up to retain his title. The two fought again, but the match turned out to be the same as Santino emerged victorious again. Santino's first defeat was in June 2007. At Vengeance, Santino again defeated Umaga by disqualification in the span of less than three minutes. A month later, Santino finally lost the WWE Intercontinental Championship to Umaga, and consequently lost his rematch a week later. In December of that year, Santino was defeated by Chris Jericho in his returning match.
On July of 2008, Marella was seen on an episode of RAW, where he was defeated by WWE Diva Beth Phoenix in an intergender match. They shared an on-screen kiss, and later became an on-screen power couple. He won the Intercontinental title for the second time during 2008’s SummerSlam, where he teamed up with Phoenix. In 2009, he entered the Royal Rumble but was instantly eliminated by Kane within a second of entering the ring.