5 Things you didn't know about Santino Marella

#4. His neck injury is worse than you thought it was

Sadly, Santino Marella was forced to retire from a full time in-ring professional wrestling career due to a severe neck injury. The injury kept Marella sidelined for the latter part of his WWE run and inevitably led to his 2016 release.

Marella admitted that the neck injury wasn't anything new and he had struggled with it for most of his adult life. His nagging injury concerns were a near-constant problem for Marella during his professional wrestling career, but the situation grew dire as his flare-ups became more frequent and closer in succession.

Marella recalls being unable to compete at a WWE live event,

"I fell asleep in the car for a second....and then I was warming up and I was like, 'I can't move it at all.' If I moved it one centimeter in any direction there was a nerve shock. I couldn't move it, so I had to tell a doctor that I couldn't move my neck at all. That was the last straw."

The very next day, Marella found himself in a collar and booked for surgery. The expectation was for a full recovery and a return to the wrestling ring, but things didn't work out according to plan,

"There was a freak accident where a couple screws came out and they were loosening and one turned. If it punctured my neck from the inside, it would have been really bad. This was three months after surgery, so they had to cut and go in again, and take out the titanium and the screws. That one really messed it up worse. If we didn't have to go back in, I'm hoping it would have been OK, but after that, it just never got well enough."