Claudio Castagnoli does not believe in shortcuts, because as far as he’s concerned, there aren’t any. “Well,” he shrugs. “That’s because there isn’t. There simply isn’t. What do you call it, the magic pill or the magic button or whatever, everybody wants it. And that’s with everything, right? It’s in fitness, it’s in life, it’s at work.”
His work at AEW often sees lifting people directly above his head and slinging them around at high speeds, which is as good a sign as any that he’s not exactly slacking in the gym (Muscle and Fitness have accurately referred to him as “one of pro wrestling’s strongest athletes”). He’s also 6’5” polyglot whose hobby of documenting every coffee he has even has a disciplined feel to it, each latte pictured with military precision.
We were supposed to be speaking in London just before France played Spain, which he’d been looking forward to watching in England. One cancelled flight later and he’s calling from Florida over Zoom instead, which is probably no bad thing, given our World Cup fever died around 80 minutes into the Argentina match on Wednesday.
This prompts him to rattle off the names of some football players, baffled that people are so quick to say the likes of Bellingham and Kane have “amazing talent”, as if that’s all it takes, an idea he seems genuinely affronted by. “I’m like, yeah, talent gets you to a certain point,” he says. “But then the work kicks in, and for every guy that’s really talented, there’s a guy who’s less talented, but willing to work double as hard. In the long run, that guy will succeed. I’ve seen it in wrestling many times.”
Crushing World Cup losses aside, AEW’s return to Wembley Stadium next month is set to cap off a huge summer of sport in the UK. “For us, Wembley, that’s kind of the final, if you will,” Castagnolisays. “Growing up in Europe, Wembley was always this magical place. And I still remember the first Wembley show we did.
“I was the most excited, and nobody really understood it, because I was around Americans. The goals were hung up in the back, and it was like right where we were supposed to come out, and I was like, ‘Just let me touch it,’” he laughs. “I just had to go and touch the goal post. So, you know, going back is always very special and I’m glad we are.”
As it stands, it’s looking like Will Ospreay is the nation’s only hope of bringing it home, a prospect made more intriguing by his recent addition to the Death Riders. It’s an extremely unlikely alliance, especially when you think of cheeky chappy Essex boy Will, with his love of Krispy Kreme and Assassin’s Creed, and then the Death Riders, with their penchant for suffocating people with plastic bags.
When it first came about, many suspected it would result in massive overhaul in his in-ring style to protect his surgically fused neck. Not only has that not happened, but as Castagnoli explains, it was never the goal anyway.
“It was always about getting Will to that next level,” he nods. “It was never about changing Will. He was already great.” Their goal is simply to provide “more tools in his arsenal to succeed”, which comes out as ominous sounding as you can imagine. Mind you, the last time AEW came to the UK, it was the Death Riders that pummelled his neck to the point he was out for months. But we know this is how they operate, they make you bleed before you bleed with them, and Castagnoli is one of several mercenaries happily inflicting violence under the spiritual leadership of Jon Moxley.
“Everybody steps up, and everybody believes in what the team is doing. Even if nobody else outside the group knows, we do. Mox has a vision,” he says. “ I trust him. But that trust doesn’t come overnight. I’ve known him for 16 years plus, and we’ve been all around the world together, in and out of the ring. The trust doesn’t come easily, but I trust him with my life.”
Assuming this trust goes both ways, does he think he might be able to recommend a new recruit in his former tag team partner – and now free agent – Sheamus? “I’ll let Sheamus answer that whenever he’s ready to, because for me to speculate wouldn’t be fair,” he says diplomatically.
“I mean, I’m his friend, I talked to him – we talk a lot about the World Cup actually. But I feel whatever he wants to do next, he will tell the world when he’s ready, and it’s going to be great no matter what.” Later, I try a different tactic and ask if he’s predicting anything unexpected at Wembley, and he doesn’t bite at all, just pure Swiss neutrality beaming through the screen again. “I know fans like to predict. For me, it’s kind of wasted energy,” he deadpans.
“Because it’s something that may or may not happen. So you worry about something that may or may not happen. To me, it’s just being ready for whatever happens, and right now, it’s Kenny and Will at Wembley. As a fan, that sounds like a dream match, so we are preparing for that.”
Between all the talk about the task at hand, there’s also discussion about what they’ll leave behind. “[Mox] has a great sense of what he would like to accomplish, and what he would like AEW to be. We all wholeheartedly believe in that, you know: what it was supposed to be, what it’s going to be, and what we leave behind for this next generation of wrestlers,” he says.
“Wrestling [has been] very good to me and I would like someone else to be treated the same way, so what [we] can do to leave wrestling in a better place is usually discussed within the Death Riders,” Not only that, but he says it’s just as crucial to work out how they can improve themselves. Outside of training, this means Castagnoli is often asking questions of the younger wrestlers, and he says he draws from Garcia and Yuta as much as he guides them: “Wrestling is always evolving, and I’m always asking them what they think and why things resonate.”
“You have to be willing to keep learning, because otherwise, you just get set in your ways. That’s usually a sign that the end is near, and I would like to keep learning and seeing what people do,” he adds. “To watch the matches of younger talent, I mean, it’s amazing, you know? It keeps my mind sharp, because they may change things or think about them completely different.
“I want to expand, and I would like to learn, so it’s always a give and take, I feel.” As with everything, it’s all done with a goal in mind, to make AEW as strong as it can be.
“That is the mission statement for us,” he concludes. “We want to make this the best place for people to be and for the best to wrestle. As we said, everybody already is – that’s what AEW is and has been. So, that just means that’s what we try to do every single day. Like, lead by example, do what we say. The ultimate statement is to make AEW a wrestling utopia.”
Tickets for AEW All In London at Wembley Stadium on 30th August are available fromLiveNation.co.uk