Mike Santana Reveals Why He Wanted To Split From Ortiz

Before Mike Santana’s untimely injury at Blood & Guts II in 2022, rumours were rife suggesting that Santana and Ortiz had fallen out, with the future of their tag team in doubt.

When Santana returned ahead of All In in August 2023, he once again teamed with Ortiz for the Stadium Stampede match, before the two officially split, with a war of words between the two playing out on social media.

Whilst their estrangement is real, the two are currently working together on screen, with Santana revealing more on the split and their future during a conversation with Jeremy Lambert and Joel Pearl on In The Weeds:

"In life, there come moments where you look back at everything and are like, 'This was cool and great accomplishments that we did, but sometimes you want more.' Sometimes, you don't want to be comfortable. I'm the type of person where comfortability makes me uncomfortable, and I like that. 

“Wrestling, just like with any job, you want to progress and you want to get better and move up and be a bigger name and do this and that. For me, personally, I realised that it's about that time. For me. I'm happy with everything that we've done and with the run that we had. It was great. We got to accomplish a lot of things together. We came up together, we helped each other get through a lot of things. Sometimes, things happen for a reason. There is a lot of personal stuff, but that's between him and me and for him and me to deal with. We decided to be professionals and we have a job. We decided to do that job. Did I initially want to do it? No, I didn't feel like there was a need for me, personally, but we're pros and we have a job, so let's do our job and make the best of it and move forward," Santana said.

Santana missed over a year of in-ring time due to an ACL injury suffered during Blood & Guts II, with Santana revealing that time away gave him more clarity on his situation:

"Yeah, but I was feeling like that way before the injury. I was just not in a good place mentally with anything. When you have nothing but time to think and sit with yourself, you have to put a lot of s*** in perspective and have to make a lot of decisions.

“For me, personally, everything happened the way it needed to. I look at this injury and everything, from my dad passing away, from the struggles at work, everything happened the way it needed to happen to get me to where I am today. Today, I am the best version of myself that I've ever been. It is what it is. Sometimes you have to go through the s*** to get to the light. The injury itself, it did a lot to me. It was definitely one of the things that it opened my eyes to… we all have a window in this business. I'm 32 years old. I'm not old, but I ain't exactly that young either. I want to make the absolute most of my time and truly make the best of it. I want to be able to look back and be like, 'I did that' and be content and happy with what I've done. At the end of the day, my main thing now is growing and having fun doing it. I always said, just like with any job and profession, if you ain't working to move up or get promoted or be bigger than what you are, what the hell is the point, what are you doing? Not everybody has that same mindset, and that's okay. I'm just speaking of myself,” continued Santana.

H/T: Fightful