WWE WrestleMania 28 Preview: Santino Marella Will Steal the Entire Show

Six months ago, this thought would have never even occurred to wrestling fans:

"Santino Marella is a legitimate contender."

It even sounds crazy to say it out loud.  

Now, Santino is the real deal and gaining massive steam in the process. 

Your current United States champion is set to captain Teddy Long's team into battle against John Laurinaitis' team, which is led by bow-tie-loving, thermos-sipping legal counsel David Otunga. 

Over the past few months, Santino has gone from a complete joke -something that wasn't too far from the norm for his character- to fan favorite who, sometimes, ends up getting more crowd reaction than The Rock. 

He went from no-good jobber to Elimination Chamber participant.  In fact, not only did Santino impress the crowd for much of his time spent in the match, he even took Daniel Bryan to the limit, narrowly escaping with the World Heavyweight Championship in the process. 

WWE brass must have been impressed with the great reaction he had been getting from the crowd and how he performed under the spotlight, because they gave him another shot in the limelight. 

A few weeks after his impressive showing in the Chamber, Santino was given another title opportunity.  This time, he faced Jack Swagger for his United States Championship. 

Sure, this match more or less brought more attention to the Johnny-Teddy feud than anything else, but having Santino win that U.S. championship was a great moment for wrestling fans all across the world. 

Even more impressive, is that despite all the distractions on the outside of the ring and being knocked out by Dolph Ziggler on several occasions while the referee was otherwise engaged, Santino overcame the odds, rolled up Swagger and got the clean victory.

After his match, tears of joy filled Marella's eyes, as you could tell that moment was very special to him.  Not just character-wise, but also personally, that moment will live on forever as one of Santino's shining moments. 

Now, Santino is building massive momentum towards his next shining moment: his WrestleMania moment.

Nothing is more important to a WWE Superstar than having that one special moment in time where the entire wrestling world's attention is on you.  That moment where nothing else matters other than what you're doing at that moment and trying to make the most of it. 

That's Santino's goal, and he will succeed in creating it in a big way. 

Santino captains Team Teddy alongside his teammates, R-Truth and Kofi Kingston.  The winner of the Team Teddy vs. Team Johnny will determine which man will run both Raw and SmackDown. 

To this point, only Santino, Truth and Kingston have been announced for Team Teddy, missing three more key ingredients, while Team Johnny is headlined by former World Champions Christian, Mark Henry, Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler and captain David Otunga.  Team Johnny is also missing one more piece to the bizarre puzzle. 

Regardless of who the three other men that will join Team Teddy are, all eyes will be on Santino. 

Marella has gained so much star power over the past few months that it seems almost impossible for the guy to be stopped. 

He's on a roll so great that it resembles that of Henry's dominance during the fall. 

Of course, Santino's roll doesn't include completely dominating his opponents, but it does compare in a sense that with so much riding up to this match -much like it was for Henry when he defeated Randy Orton twice in a row- Santino seems as if he can't be stopped. 

Considering all of these facts -the rapid growth of popularity with the fans, the United States title run, the winning streak - it's hard to imagine Santino possibly losing. 

Santino is a case of a hot commodity that fans want to see succeed, much like Zack Ryder was before he starting filming some movie, causing him to miss quite a bit of time.  Look where Ryder's popularity took him in a short amount of time.

Santino is destined to do great things, even if it is for just a short time longer.  WrestleMania is where stars are born. 

Look for Santino to show the world he truly is a special talent.