Tony Salantri

Anthony Salantri (born October 4, 1980) is an American former professional wrestler, better known by his ring names Tony Santarelli or Tony Stradlin, who competed in North American promotions including Combat Zone Wrestling, the National Wrestling Alliance, as well as New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Zero1, Deep South Wrestling, and World Wrestling Entertainment. One half of the tag team High Impact with Mike Taylor, he and Taylor were the first DSW Tag Team Champions.

Salantri started training with Shawn Michaels' Texas Wrestling Academy in 2000. During 2001, Salantri began wrestling for NWA Wildside participating in a battle royal for the NWA "Beat the Champ" Championship on April 19. He was the last man to be eliminated by Destiny.

In July, he made an appearance at CZW Deja Vu losing to M-Dogg 20 and, the following year, he performed for Bill Behrens' NWA Wildside forming a tag team with Todd Sexton. Known as TNT, he and Sexton would feud with the Lost Boys over the NWA Wildside Tag Team Championship holding the titles on two occasions.

Salantri moved on to Ultimate Pro Wrestling teaming with Kid Vicious, he lost to MTV celebrity wrestler The Real World's The Miz and Lil Nate on July 11, 2003. During early 2004, he would defeat Lil Nate in a singles match and later won the Mat Wars championship tournament defeating The Miz in the tournament finals. On May 16, he lost to Tatsuhito Takaiwa in a match for the vacant NWA International Junior Heavyweight Championship in Tokyo, Japan on May 16.

Briefly feuding with Frankie Kazarian, he and Tommy Wilson began teaming together defeating Frankie Kazarian & Andrew Hellman on June 12 and Supa Badd & Shawn Riddik on July 17, 2004. After appearing on WWE Velocity against Último Dragón on December 13, he joined Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in October 2004 although had little success, he did score later victories over Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels and Colt Cabana.

On March 17, 2005 Salantri signed a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) although he continued wrestling for NWA Wildside during early 2005, teaming with Sexton, losing to Azrael and Tony Mamaluke and, in a 6-man tag team match with Brandon Thomaselli and Todd Sexton, defeated Caprice Coleman, Sal and Vito Thomaselli on April 16. Making his last appearance on April 30, he and Sexton lost to Caprice Coleman and Tony Mamaluke after both he and Sexton were put in submission holds.

Eventually assigned to WWE's Deep South Wrestling territory under the name Tony Santarelli, he formed High Impact with Mike Taylor and made their debut at Deep South Wrestling's first televised event, defeating The Regulators (Mike & Todd Shane) on September 1, although they lost to the Shane Twins in a rematch at a WWE live event three days later as well as to Team Elite on September 8.

Defeating Kid Kash and Johnny Parisi and the Slaughter Boys later that month, they also wrestled Team Elite to a 30-minute time limit draw on September 30. Facing Team Elite and The Regulators in several matches during October, Salantri also faced Mike Knox in a singles match losing to him on October 27. Defeating Nunzio and Big Vito on November 3 due to outside interference by The Regulators, he would also defeat Palmer Cannon during the opening rounds of the DSW Heavyweight Championship Tournament before being eliminated in the semi-finals by Mike Knox on December 1, 2005.