Anthony Carelli is an amazing performer. I was not one of those who turned on him during his Intercontinental Title reign, but I can understand why people did. Those problems weren't Carelli's, though, rather the fault of the WWE for making him so bland.
The guy has always been good on the mic. He almost made Vince crack up laughing during his debut.
Vince: Do you speak English, Santino?
Marella: .......Ci, ci.
*Vince starts to smile and tries to hide it*
It's quite interesting to have a look at his OVW work, which is a complete contrast to his WWE work. There he played Boris Alexiev, who was kind of a shoot fighter from Russia.
Here is a video promoting Boris Alexiev in OVW. I would not be able to tell they are the same guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2u3tJDEeBA
That's why I refer to Santino Marella by his real name a lot. His characters are quite out-there, really. I mean, this isn't just a guy from the south pretending to be a hillbilly; he has to fake the accent, and really has a long way to go to get into character. I think he deserves props for getting as far as he does with it.
In the ring, Carelli is vastly underrated. He was one of Paul Heyman's best prospects during his stint in OVW, along with Mr. Kennedy, CM Punk, Brent Albright, Matt Cappotelli, Johnny Jeter and Kenny Dykstra. Granted, those are a lot of names, but this is Paul Heyman we are talking about, and we know what he can do when he takes the book (see the classic ECW or SmackDown! circa 2002/2003 for details). Carelli has a lot of in-ring potential, and I think eventually people will do an MVP on the guy, and when he gets a chance to show it, people will go "OMG! He suddenly got better!" I think the talent is already there, the company just haven't given him the platform yet.