Claudio Castagnoli dared to leave his well-earned position in WWE and try something new with AEW. According to the former US champion, his motivation was keeping himself sharp and making sure that he still got it.
The former WWE star recently appeared on The Kurt Angle Show. He was first asked about his WWE departure and Castagnoli explained that it was time for him to try something new:
“I kind of felt that it was time to try something new. To look for a new challenge. Towards the end [of my run] my mind was made up. I’m always happy and grateful. I was happy and grateful [in WWE]. But I also knew where I was thought of, you know what I mean?
So I was just looking for something different at this point, and to me when I look at AEW, there’s so many guys that I want to be in the ring with that I have not necessarily been in the ring with.”
‘I Want To See If I Still Got It’: Claudio Castagnoli
Claudio Castagnoli then explained the philosophy he learned from John Cena. He mentioned that he wants to surround himself with people who can push him to do better and he wants to retire while he can still wrestle competently:
“There’s so many young people there that I was like, ‘This is amazing. I wanna be part of that.’ I really want to because again you’re only as good as your last match. You need to surround yourself with people, and I always have, that push you and are better than you. To me it was like I looked at it and I was [like] ‘Okay, I wanna go to AEW, and I want to wrestle of all those young guys. I want to see if I still got it.’
Because when people ask me like ‘When you think it’s time for you to retire? Certain age, this or that’ it’s whenever I get in that ring and I feel like I [have] lost two steps. I never want people to think, ‘Oh man I wish he would have [retired]’ I’m like ‘No, I wanna go out when I still can do what I can.'”
You can watch Claudio Castagnoli’s full interview below:
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