Cesaro Debuts in AEW at Forbidden Door facing Zack Sabre Jr. The story heading into this match is that Bryan Danielson was injured with a concussion and couldn’t make the match. So he informed Zack Sabre Jr. that there would be a wrestler taking his place. That would be Claudio Castagnoli.
Claudio, known in WWE as Cesaro, wrestled a great match for his debut. His actual debut was scheduled to be at Ring of Honor Death Before Dishonor. An event which is set to take place next month. However Tony Khan of AEW confirmed that Cesaro’s debut was moved up due to all the injuries leading into Forbidden Door. Yes, there was a lot of injuries.
Cesaro most recently had wrestled for WWE. He had let his contract expire with the company, and rebuffed offers to get him to sign. One can understand why. He’d gone from being featured in the main event match against Roman Reigns last year at WrestleMania Backlash to barely appearing at all. Many including this writer considered that match to be the best match that the main roster WWE produced last year.
From main events, to lucky to get into Battle Royals on Television tapings. To say Cesaro’s star had fallen in WWE is an understatement. It’s a common belief that if you aren’t the champion, you aren’t getting pushed in a wrestling company. However, that is a falsehood, as you can be a key featured player without a title for years. At which point it becomes clear that the company considers you a major star, such as Kevin Owens.
However, Cesaro wasn’t featured in anything like that in the last months of his time in WWE. No doubt that Claudio, as he is now going by his real name in AEW, hopes to be featured much more. Claudio is an absolutely fantastic wrestler. He could easily be a key component to any upper mid-card or main event level match. However, considering how many ex-WWE stars are featured on AEW Dark and not much more, we’ll have to see what happens.
Follow us on Twitter to be notified when we release articles daily.
Check out our Wrestling on the website for more Professional Wrestling news.