Santana and his former partner, Ortiz, were one of the first tag teams to join AEW in 2019, premiering on the first episode of “AEW Dynamite” alongside Chris Jericho and The Inner Circle. However, over the years, the now-former tag team stopped seeing eye-to-eye on the direction of their careers, and they officially broke up as a tag team in 2024. Bully Ray believes Ortiz is the perfect opponent for Santana at this stage.

“I don’t want to hear from anybody about, ‘Oh, those two hate each other.’ Good. I’m glad that they hate each other,” he said. That hatred will bring out the best in [them]. When I look at stuff like this, I look at it strictly from a storyline point of view. What makes sense? Who would be harboring so much animosity toward Mike Santana that he could possibly be involved with ‘NXT’ guys to do something to ruin Mike’s life? Who wants to ruin Mike’s life that much? Ortiz.”

Bully Ray said that after the response to Santana’s win at Slammiversary, as half the crowd had left after The Hardy’s match, the company needs to throw a major threat at him. He said he didn’t see the “dollars and cents” in Santana chasing Kazarian for the TNA Championship.

Ortiz remains in AEW, however. He recently revealed to Wombreezy that he still has around a year on his current contract and despite not being on TV, he’s been coaching and producing in the company.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Busted Open Radio” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.