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Taking Mexico by storm: Cesaro celebrates the CMLL Grand Prix 2024. <\/p>\n
Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre <\/p>\n
Lucerne native Claudio Castagnoli has made his name internationally in a sport that gets little attention in Switzerland:\u00a0wrestling. With a wrestling persona as a wealthy Swiss banker, he won some of the most prestigious titles in the US and\u00a0tells Swissinfo how he\u00a0fell in love with the scene in Mexico.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
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August 15, 2026 – 10:00\n<\/p>\n
Professional wrestling and Switzerland are not the most intuitive of pairings. The North American version, as made famous by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), has never been particularly popular in Switzerland, and unlike France, Germany or the United Kingdom, it lacks a deep tradition of independent \u201cpromotions\u201d, the companies that organise and produce the shows.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Early career with the Swiss Money Holding, a professional wrestling tag team originally formed by Castagnoli (left) and fellow Swiss wrestler Ares in Europe during the early 2000s. <\/p>\n
Personal archive <\/p>\n
But anyone who has been following wrestling for the last couple decades\u00a0probably knows\u00a0the name of a colossal Lucerne native: Claudio Castagnoli (or Cesaro).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He is a multi-time champion in tag matches (involving two-wrestler teams) in the 2000s indies, the independent promotions that mushroomed at the beginning of the century, revolutionising the sport. He is a trios (three-wrestler teams) champion in All Elite Wrestling (AEW), WWE United States Champion, and world champion in Ring of Honor (ROH), Pro-Wrestling Guerrilla\u00a0(PWG), Westside Xtreme Wrestling, and Mexico\u2019s Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Castagnoli\u2019s career is storied, but it wasn\u2019t easy getting there while holding a Swiss passport.<\/p>\n
A stairway to wrestling<\/p>\n
Always an active kid, Castagnoli started playing tennis as a six-year-old, before switching to football, where he had a very successful run as the main striker for his local squad, and developed his initial fandom for FC Luzern.<\/p>\n
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Castagnoli excelled in several sports before falling in love with wrestling. <\/p>\n
Personal archive <\/p>\n
As Claudio continued to grow, signs of his prominent stature and athletic prowess became more and more noticeable, and with this came a newfound passion for basketball, which he followed religiously through broadcast news teletexts the morning after the US primetime NBA games. He was selected for regional teams, but never embarked seriously on this path, as the allure of pro-wrestling had already made its way into his life by his late teens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a fan like everybody else, and I saw a guy from Switzerland who actually wrestled:\u00a0\u00a0Siegmeister\u00a0Rapo,\u201d Castagnoli, 45,\u00a0says. \u201cHe wrestled in Germany and a little bit in the US. I saw he trained somewhere in Zurich, just in a gym on mats.\u00a0So\u00a0I went there, tried it out, liked it, and started travelling with him to Germany. I started doing\u00a0more and more, and with another guy from Switzerland we formed the tag team Swiss Money Holding. It was just two rich Swiss bankers travelling to Germany as wrestlers. In those days, the more over-the-top the character the better.\u00a0So\u00a0we took something stereotypical like a Swiss banker and had a blast being obnoxious and provocative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enter the dragon<\/p>\n
European success puts wrestlers in a predicament: the world\u2019s top promotions are in the US,\u00a0Japan\u00a0and Mexico. Castagnoli decided to try the US first, breaking out as the wrestling world was undergoing a transition. WWE had absorbed its biggest rival, creating a monopoly that inadvertently pushed fans towards\u00a0the independent boom of the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n
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Training in Mexico, 2006. <\/p>\n
Personal archive <\/p>\n
Cult promotions\u00a0such as\u00a0ROH and PWG gained traction with their presentation, and blogs and peer-to-peer networks allowed a new generation of Western wrestlers and fans access to the Japanese and Mexican styles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the old days we traded video cassettes,\u201d Castagnoli says. \u201cI discovered other American wrestling like Extreme Championship Wrestling, Japanese stuff, and then later lucha libre\u00a0[Mexican professional wrestling].\u00a0I fell in love with it.\u00a0I learnt\u00a0fairly early\u00a0on that every promotion has different rules,\u00a0preferences\u00a0and audiences. The better you are at adjusting your style, the better reactions you get. The US is different from Germany; Mexico is different from Japan.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After an illustrious run in Chikara and ROH, Castagnoli began getting more prominent bookings in singles competition, where he got to\u00a0showcase\u00a0his superhuman strength\u00a0\u2013\u00a0which would earn him the nickname of Swiss Superman. He also\u00a0established\u00a0feuds with cult\u00a0favourites\u00a0such as\u00a0Eddie Kingston and Nigel McGuinness and developed\u00a0a villainous persona that went on to exalt his \u201cvery European background, superior intellect and sense of fashion\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was crazy looking back at the talent in ROH at that time,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were all just trying to prove a point. Testing yourself against people better than you from\u00a0different backgrounds\u00a0helps you figure out how to improve. Back in the day with ROH, PWG, NOAH, New Japan, All Japan\u2026 you had to fight to get in. To get better, you\u00a0have to\u00a0get the reps,\u201d\u00a0he says, referring to\u00a0ring performances.<\/p>\n
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Castagnoli and Shota Umino compete during the New Japan Pro-Wrestling \u2013 Wrestle Dynasty at Tokyo Dome on January 05, 2025. <\/p>\n
Etsuo Hara \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n
Cesaro rises<\/p>\n
Despite some unfruitful try-outs in the mid-2000s, Castagnoli finally became a full-time roster member of WWE in 2012 and stayed with the company for a decade under the ring name Cesaro. There, he became a staple of the promotion\u2019s tag division\u00a0and\u00a0had critically acclaimed matches with stars\u00a0such as\u00a0Sami Zayn, John Cena and Sheamus;\u00a0his hard-hitting European style made him a fan favourite, respected by peers and legends alike (Stone Cold Steve Austin was a fan). <\/p>\n
However, WWE\u2019s senior executives never committed to placing him constantly on the \u201cupper cards\u201d \u2013 the most prestigious positions on its roster\u00a0\u2013\u00a0fearing his \u201cwrestler\u2019s wrestler\u201d style wouldn\u2019t\u00a0fit their entertainment-focused product.<\/p>\n
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Stirring up the crowds: Castagnoli at the 27 August 2023 All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view \u201cAll In.\u201d <\/p>\n
McPhail, CC0 <\/p>\n
When AEW, a new promotion built on\u00a0showcasing\u00a0independent talent and styles rarely seen on US television, came calling, Castagnoli made an intuitive move, integrating himself into one of their most prominent factions, the Death Riders. Then, AEW broke stigmas further by partnering with Japan\u2019s New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Mexico\u2019s CMLL.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time, people saw one thing and thought \u2018that is it\u2019,\u201d Castagnoli says. \u201cNow they have a chance to see more\u00a0[forms of wrestling]. That\u2019s the beauty of it. Everybody has their own way, and if you mix it, you get something great.\u00a0[In AEW]\u00a0Blue Panther can come on American television and wrestle his style. Japanese or Mexican wrestlers can come on television and speak how they would speak, and it connects differently than if you tell them how to do it. If they can just do it their way, it works.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mad scientists and monsters<\/p>\n
AEW\u2019s partnerships also gave Castagnoli a moment of personal closure. His relationship to lucha libre ran deeper than ambition. At Chikara, his mentor,\u00a0Skayde, had taught him the fundamentals of the lucha style, and before that, he loved the infamous B-movies where Blue Demon, Mil\u00a0M\u00e1scaras\u00a0and Santo battled mad scientists and monsters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the mid-2000s, before his breakout at ROH, Castagnoli spent a month in Mexico City trying to get under the bright lights of Arena Mexico, the home of CMLL. It\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0work out.\u00a0Twenty\u00a0years later, Castagnoli not only got to headline the Friday night events at the mythical venue in Colonia\u00a0Doctores\u00a0but did so as their World Heavyweight Champion, and as the first dual contract for an AEW-signed talent in Mexico.<\/p>\n
External Content <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great\u00a0honour\u00a0and a cool full-circle moment,\u201d he says. \u201cArena Mexico is \u2018La Catedral\u2019,\u00a0and you feel it. There\u2019s no place in the world like it. You feel what it means to the people. You feel what it means to walk down those steps and\u00a0step\u00a0into that ring because so many legends have done it before you. In Mexico City, you walk around and there\u2019s lucha merchandise everywhere. That level of cultural impact is amazing\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and I got to be a part of it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Castagnoli held the CMLL World Heavyweight Championship for 112 days,\u00a0ultimately losing\u00a0it to\u00a0Hechicero\u00a0at one of Mexico\u2019s biggest lucha events:\u00a0Homenaje\u00a0A Dos Leyendas. Defeat\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0diminish the achievement: his reign was affectionately remembered\u00a0by\u00a0Mexican fans and media.\u00a0The Swiss Superman continues to wrestle weekly on AEW and CMLL.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYears ago, I never thought this was\u00a0gonna\u00a0happen,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to be a professional wrestler, that was the goal. It was never about being a champion. Now I just try to be as good as I can and see what happens. I got to wrestle at the Tokyo Dome, and then at La Catedral. I won the World Heavyweight Championship and became the first guy with a double contract. It was humbling. I\u2019m still trying to put in the work, still trying to wrestle as good as I can, and it keeps showing me that I still need to be at the top of my game. I\u2019m also just trying to have fun and show the world how cool, fun, and interesting professional wrestling can be.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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A long way from the gym mats in Zurich: working out in the US. <\/p>\n
Personal archive <\/p>\n