Ortiz provides an insight into Proud & Powerful’s dissolution.
Santana and Ortiz’s runs in All Elite Wrestling have been filled with many starts and stops due to both a number of injuries and reportedly a real-life falling out between the pair. Ortiz and Santana’s disagreements ultimately culminated in a blow off match that took place on an October edition of Rampage in 2023.
Ortiz recently spoke to The Shining Wizards Wrestling Podcast and would go on to insist that the company wasn’t the one that made the decision to separate the pair, as he notes that Mike Santana was adamant about going their separate ways.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t the company’s call to split us (Santana & Ortiz). Me and Santana just couldn’t get it together personally and he was just very adamant about not working with me anymore. So, the company kind of had no choice but to split us up, right? So they’re like, ‘Okay, you’re just not gonna not tag. It doesn’t make any sense. Let’s at least make this make sense why you split.’ But even when we did it on TV, it just ended up, I feel like, being kind of rushed and you know what I mean? Let’s get to the point already due to stuff that was going on backstage and it was just making it hard to really put forward a program and then just our television in general, kind of has that feeling all over on all our shows. There’s almost that sense of rushing at times. Some stuff kind of sits and settles but, you could kind of see what they’re putting their effort into. The stuff that really gets time to settle and really get to cook whereas some other segments, due to time constraints, you just kind of have to make those segments go faster and faster and there were supposed to be more development between me and him. It just, again, things out of my control. It just never panned out the way it was. It was set out to be a couple of weeks program throughout all our television. Like Collision, Dynamite and Rampage and then we just kind of went to Rampage and then we stood there and yeah, it just kind of played out how it played out unfortunately.”
-Ortiz
Upon being asked whether he sees AEW never putting the World Tag Team Championship on Proud & Powerful, Ortiz responded that they could’ve pushed for a title win, however he was unable to share specific information, citing his resistance to getting in trouble stopping him from saying too much.
“I tend to avoid it at times but that stuff (opinions from fans that Ortiz & Santana should’ve gotten AEW Tag Title run), it’s almost hard to avoid because we’re constantly tagged in stuff about that. To answer your question, how I felt about it, ah, I think we could have forced a hand a little bit more when we did have the opportunities that we had and I can’t completely blame the company because I mean, there was talks about it but it was almost like it was never the right time, right? It just wasn’t our time and it was just kind of because we were always intertwined with a huge storyline with The Inner Circle and it would have been hard to sway off and kind of go do our own tag thing and go after the Tag Titles. So, it actually was supposed to happen more than once. But just due to stuff out of our control, out of my control, it just never seemed to pan out. It’s not like those people on the internet that were clamoring for us to be Tag Team Champions — it was noticed by the people in AEW and above and it almost happened two times. It just never panned out. I won’t get into the weeds of things, only because I think I’ll get in trouble if I do (he laughed). That’s pretty much it. It was supposed to happen. It just never did unfortunately.”
Ortiz then shed light on his current status post Proud and Powerful, noting that he’s still putting all the pieces together as well as contemplating a wide sweeping character change. Ortiz feels he and Santana were typecast in a rather singular manner, and whilst he didn’t take offence to it, it was certainly something he was aware of.
Despite the pair’s split, Ortiz closed by highlighting his fondness for tag team wrestling, as well as yearning to display a more hybrid style in the ring.
“Yeah, definitely. I’m still in that phase (of figuring out what direction I want to go in as a singles talent). I kind of want to change my whole persona… I’ve kind of been typecast into the street brawler guy which is fine. But it’s very close to home and I’m down to play that role, but I also just — I wanna wrestle, I wanna chain wrestle, I wanna go hold for hold, I wanna do more lucha stuff. I’ve always prided myself on being a hybrid wrestler and I just kinda wanna do more of that and I feel like in the last couple of years, especially coming off of IMPACT, because me and Santana did gimmick matches so well; Street Fights and Barbed Wire Massacres and Table matches and we did well and excelled in those matches, it was like a double-edged sword. We were kind of typecast into playing that role. We were in all the Blood & Guts and all the Stadium Stampedes — well except for one Blood & Guts but, yeah… we kind of fell into playing that role and I kind of just wanna go back to just wrestling, doing some cool stuff. My favorite type of wrestling is early 90s Michinoku Pro so I wanna do more stuff like that. I wanna be in dope multi-man matches and I love tag team wrestling and I wanna continue tag team wrestling but kind of now, it doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards for me. Maybe I could push a little harder to do it. I find myself on an island all by myself and I’m just trying to find that voice. I feel like I have an opportunity. Instead of looking at the cup half-empty, I could look at it half-full and I could take this opportunity and reinvent myself and kind of maybe a gimmick change. I don’t know. I’m playing with stuff, I have a lot of ideas, a lot of stuff in the tank and kind of seeing where it goes. I don’t wanna say one thing because honestly, I might wake up tomorrow and feel something else.”
Ortiz
Mike Santana would defeat Ortiz on an October edition of AEW Rampage, Santana recently became the House of Glory Heavyweight Champion after defeating Matt Cardona in December of 2023.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the future of Ortiz and Mike Santana as soon as we hear more.
H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
