"Thanks to everyone who’s been backing me on this ride" - Absent AEW star sends a message 

An AEW star, who made his last Television appearance for the Jacksonville-based company in October 2023, recently sent a heartfelt message to his supporters. The star in question is Mike Santana.

Santana has had a rough year as he spent the first seven months of 2023 on the shelf, recovering from an injury he suffered in a Blood and Guts match in June 2022. The 32-year-old returned to the ring on August 27, 2023, at AEW All In pay-per-view in London, where he teamed with the Blackpool Combat Club in a Stadium Stampede match.

After that, Santana had two more AEW matches, one with Bronson and another a grudge match against his long-time tag team partner, Ortiz, and he was victorious in both. Santana also wrestled a few matches in the independent circuit and even won the House of Glory World Heavyweight Championship from Matt Cardona.

The AEW star recently took to Twitter to inform about his last two wrestling matches of the year and thank his supporters who stood by his side.

"Last 2 shows of 2023 for me. Can’t tell you how great it’s been being back in the game, after being out for over a year. Thanks to everyone who’s been backing me on this ride. Tonight. @GCWrestling_, Ridgefield Park, NJ. Dec 26th. @GRKWrestling, Toronto, ON," Mike Santana wrote.

AEW star Mike Santana shares thoughts about working with Ortiz

Santana and Ortiz, known as the Proud & Powerful, debuted in AEW as a tag team and remained together for over two years. However, the duo split recently after reported real-life heat between them.

Speaking on Fightful Wrestling's In The Weeds, Santana detailed the real-life differences with Ortiz and how they decided to set the issues aside and work as professionals.

"For me, personally, I realized that it's about that time. For me. I'm happy with everything that we've done and with the run that we had. It was great. We got to accomplish a lot of things together. We came up together, we helped each other get through a lot of things. Sometimes, things happen for a reason. There is a lot of personal stuff, but that's between him and me and for him and me to deal with. We decided to be professionals and we have a job. We decided to do that job." said Santana (H/t Fightful)

The issues between the former partners were worked into a storyline by Tony Khan's company. Santana and Ortiz went face-to-face on the October 25, 2023 edition of Rampage, with the former scoring the win.

---

Would you like to watch Santana have a singles run in AEW? Sound off in the comments below.