Mike Santana details his recent life struggles.
In March 2024, Mike Santana left AEW, as his contract with the promotion expired. At that point, Santana had only wrestled for the company on two occasions since June 2022, where he suffered an ACL injury during the Blood & Guts match between the Jericho Appreciation Society and the Blackpool Combat Club.
Santana recently sat down for an interview with Chris Van Vliet to talk about a range of topics, including his departure from AEW.
“My decision to leave AEW came well before my injury actually," Santana said. "I got hurt in June of 2022 and at that point, I was just dealing with so much in my life personally and professionally at work, and I was just burnt out. My contract was coming up in September I believe and I had already made the decision to not re-sign and that I needed to take a break and deal with the things that I needed to deal with. Then, the injury happened. That was a lot. A lot was going on at that time.”
Van Vliet then asked Santana if he thought that the company was looking to re-sign him to a new deal.
“I’m not sure, but I wasn’t actively pursuing [it] like, oh, the time is coming up. Like I said, it was June I got hurt, our contract was running up in August I think. I wasn’t really actively pursuing like, ‘Oh, are you guys gonna re-sign us?’ because already in my head I was like, I need to get away, I need to take a break. But I’m sure something would’ve worked out and they probably would have re-signed us. It was a very dark time for me.”
Santana then went on to talk about his unhappiness in life at that point and how he was miserable because of issues with relationships, work, and addiction.
“Unhappiness personally in my life, outside of wrestling and then professionally, things weren’t really going good. I was miserable to say the least. My partnership was falling apart, things at work just weren’t — a lot of things were just very stagnant and I’m the type that I’m a go getter and I’m very goal oriented. Again, in this business, I treat it as such, I treat it as a business. If you’re not striving to be at the top and to be a champ and grow yourself, then what are you doing? That’s with anything I feel like. But also, I was dealing with my addiction issues at that time. At that point, they were getting pretty bad. When the injury happened, I remember it happened and laying there in the ring and I was like, ‘Damn, I got hurt, but thank god I got hurt.’ It was a weird time.”
The conversation got deeply personal at that point, as Santana was asked to share details about the moment that he knew he had to get clean.
“I knew it was getting bad because I wasn’t coming home and I would be out for days. Christmas was coming up and every year, my daughter always wrote her Christmas list to Santa. In her list, one of the only things on her list is that she wanted daddy to stop. Then, my grandmother wrote me a letter. My grandmother has always been a savior in my life and growing up, I had a pretty rough childhood and she showed me that there was more to life than just trauma and a lot of the bullshit I was going through. Seeing that I was causing her pain, especially after my dad had passed away, and then my daughter and her mom, it was like — when you’re an addict, you think you’re just hurting yourself and you don’t see the others around you that are hurting, you know.”
Santana was then asked to talk about how he was thinking about his future in wrestling at that time.
“I mean at that time, back when I got hurt, I was just thinking that I need to get out. I need to get away from this, I need to figure my life out. I wasn’t even thinking that once I got everything situated, I’ll come back and do what I gotta do. I was just so overwhelmed with everything and so unhappy. When my dad passed away — I’ve always lived my life in survival mode. It was something that I got used to. My entire life was constant guard up and surviving day by day and there was a lot of things that I went through as a kid that I held inside because I wasn’t really taught to speak about these things. My mom, because of the things that were going on and for her to protect us, she would always be like, ‘Whatever happens at home, stays at home.’ I grew up with that. I was like, whatever I deal with, I deal with it on my own and keep it pushing. I held on to a lot of things from my childhood and when that stuff builds up, it’s like a soda bottle when you shake it up and eventually, something will happen and it will explode. That’s what happened when my dad died. My dad died and everything just came to the surface.”
After leaving AEW, Santana took to Instagram to share a heartfelt post about his departure from the company. Fans can learn more about that post here.
Santana is currently active on the independent scene, competing in promotions like House Of Glory and BEYOND Wrestling as of late.
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