[3] In July, he made an appearance at CZW Deja Vu losing to M-Dogg 20 and, the following year, he performed for Bill Behrens' NWA Wildside forming a tag team with Todd Sexton.

Salantri moved on to Ultimate Pro Wrestling teaming with Kid Vicious, he lost to MTV celebrity wrestler The Real World's The Miz and Lil Nate on July 11, 2003.

After appearing on WWE Velocity against Último Dragón on December 13,[5][6] he joined Pro Wrestling Guerrilla in October 2004 although had little success,[7] he did score later victories over Frankie Kazarian, Christopher Daniels and Colt Cabana.

Eventually assigned to WWE's Deep South Wrestling territory under the name Tony Santarelli, he formed High Impact with Mike Taylor and made their debut at Deep South Wrestling's first televised event, defeating The Regulators (Mike & Todd Shane) on September 1, although they lost to the Shane Twins in a rematch at a WWE live event three days later as well as to Team Elite on September 8.

Defeating Kid Kash and Johnny Parisi and the Slaughter Boys later that month, they also wrestled Team Elite to a 30-minute time limit draw on September 30.

He and Taylor eventually appeared in a dark match on Monday Night Raw defeating Team Elite (Mike Knox & Derrick Neikirk) on February 6.