Claudio Castagnoli is proud of the fact that fans still remember an infamous WrestleMania moment he was involved in.
During a recent appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Claudio Castagnoli reflected on his time as Cesaro in WWE. One WrestleMania moment saw him (and Cesaro as The Bar) defending the WWE Tag Team Championship against Braun Strowman and a mystery opponent at WrestleMania 34. The mystery opponent ended up being Nicholas (Cone, referee John Cone’s son) and while the appearance was a bit polarizing, Claudio is happy that fans still remember what was a fun moment for him.
“I didn’t even realize (Nicholas was in the match). So, I met Nicholas earlier that day and I didn’t realize that he was going to be the mystery opponent, because no one told us until the last minute. It was like three hours later and I asked Sheamus or somebody ‘So who is it?’ And he was like ‘You met him 3 hours ago.’ I’m like ohhh! I thought it was really cool,” Claudio said.
“I mean every show, what I love about wrestling, all the kinds of different matches, the roller coaster ride it takes you on. That show needed a match where it was fun. Every show needs fun matches. WrestleMania, everyone is nervous and hyped, it is WrestleMania. Once everything was figured out, everything was so much fun. We had the float with the big head guys, it was a crazy, awesome entrance. The match was just fun, and it is all about moments,” he stated. “If you are a kid watching WrestleMania, that could be you. For people to still talk about it to this day, that WrestleMania had a lot of bangers on it, but for people to come to me and still say ‘So Nicholas?’ That’s cool.”
Claudio also looked back on being a “Paul Heyman Guy” and how it was short-lived since Heyman realigned with Brock Lesnar.
“Brock Lesnar came back, and Paul Heyman went back to Brock Lesnar. [On if Paul Heyman telling everyone about the streak being broken while with Cesaro was the downfall] Yeah, I would think so. It was right after WrestleMania 30 when I won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is still one of my favorite memories of my career,” Claudio stated.
“I remember it was also me and Jack Swagger broke up as The Real Americans, we both went solo and I was clearly liked as the babyface in that scenario, but they kept us both heels but then they switched Swagger babyface and kept me heel,” he explained, “so it was this weird mix of happenstance where they put me with Heyman. Heyman talked about Brock, I was supposed to be a bad guy but they really liked me, so again we were going against the grain in that aspect. So, I think it was just a series of unfortunate circumstances.”
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