10 Wrestlers Who Retired Too Young-6

6. Santino Marella

WWE.com

Santino Marella divided opinion. Depending on who you talk to, he was either a fun, hilarious, wildly under-valued worker or he was tedious, cringe-worthy and the laughing stock of WWE. Love him or loathe him, one thing’s for sure: there’s nobody else like him.

His early retirement due to injury has left a big hole in the WWE roster. He was their go-to-guy for funny. Sure, this often backfired. It was usually 50/50 whether his backstage segments would get a chuckle or not, but his in-ring style was always fun. And who can forget the Elimination Chamber in 2011? After four eliminations, the match was down to just Santino and Daniel Bryan for the World Heavyweight Championship, and all it took was one tease that Santino might win to send the crowd into raptures. He didn’t (which for probably for the best) but there’s no denying he had a connection with “the WWE Universe”.

Now there’s a chance that he might move into commentary, at least on NXT, which is something to look forward to. But in-ring there’s nobody else on the WWE roster who can step up. Comedic wrestling is shockingly under-represented at the world’s leading wrestling company, and we can only hope that WWE uses this as an opportunity to look elsewhere for a wrestler capable of making people laugh and (cough) actually gives (cough–Colt) them a chance to (cough–Cabana) do so.