Santana Further Teasing Return From Injury

Last week, the Wrestling Observer reported that after being on the shelf for a year with a knee injury, AEW star Santana is just about ready to return to wrestling. In April, he tweeted a video with the hashtag #TheRICANstruction (a portmanteau of Puerto Rican and reconstruction) but it didn't show much of anything other than him walking around New York City. On Friday, though, he released #TheRICANstruction Part 2, which points more directly towards his comeback.

The video begins with Santana standing outside an apartment building in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood before walking over a mile to the Delancey Street subway station and boarding a Brooklyn-bound train. After the camera follows his trip over the Williamsburg Bridge, he exits at the Myrtle Avenue station in the Bedford-Stuyvescent neighborhood and heads to the Brooklyn Transition Center, a public school that improbably doubles as the home of Battle Club Pro's Fallout Shelter wrestling school. The video ends with him walking inside, removing his sunglasses, looking at something off-camera — presumably the school's wrestling ring — and smiling.

That location holds particular significance for Santana. When "AEW Dynamite" was about to launch in 2019 and talent were under the impression that they could no longer take independent bookings once it did, Santana and tag team partner Ortiz had what was supposed to be their indie farewell match at a Battle Club Pro show held in the school's courtyard. It's currently unknown exactly what Santana's contractual status is, as he was still being paid by AEW during his recovery long past the point when his deal was set to expire last summer. A reunion with Ortiz seems unlikely, though, as the two had fallen out personally due to a disagreement over how they were being used in AEW.