Santino Marella Returns to His Judo Roots For a Competition

Former WWE Intercontinental, United States, and Tag Team Champion Santino Marella recently participated in a Judo tournament for the first time in nearly 20 years. As many fans already know, Santino has an extensive Judo background and also competed in a few mixed martial arts fights during his time in Japan before signing with WWE and Ohio Valley Wrestling back in 2005.

Santino posted the following on Instagram:

 

This weekend I did something kind of crazy, I competed in my first judo tournament in about 19 years. I have been working out consistently each morning and sort of found myself in OK shape, plus my body has been pretty pain-free so on a whim I decided to fight this weekend at the Asahi annual tournament in the open weight category, I will admit I was not in judo competition shape however I had a great time out there, i won three matches and lost one in overtime by penalty and wound up with a bronze. It was great to compete in front of some old friends, my wife, my dad, my students, and some old teammates. 43 years old, post WWE, post 2 neck surgeries, I'm a little banged up but damn that was fun.

A post shared by Santino Marella (@themilanmiracle) on Oct 1, 2017 at 8:16pm PDT