Santino Marella thought there was a chance Vince McMahon would make him world champion

Santino Marella nearly became a WWE world champion at the 2012 Elimination Chamber PPV. During an appearance on The A2theK Wrestling Show, Marella commented on making it to the end of the Chamber match with world champion Daniel Bryan…

“Yeah it’s funny, one of the things I’m most known for is coming a fraction of second away from being the world champion… I was talking with Pete Dunne, and now they actually call it the ‘Santino spot’…Everybody around the world who was watching that pay-per-view thought “oh sh*t, this guy is gonna win it”, and we got everybody. We got everybody!”

“Man even at the end when he had his finishing move on me, and I was fighting out of it, I swear I still thought there was a chance, you know? …Mike Chioda was in gorilla and he was watching Vince [McMahon] and he was like ‘man, I swear he was this close to calling it on the fly and changing it’…it would have been crazy.” (quotes courtesy of Sportskeeda.com)