Chris Jericho reflects on Claudio Castagnoli doing the big swing on top of the Blood & Guts cage.
During an Inside The Ropes Live show, Chris Jericho spoke about how they set up the spot that saw Claudio Castagnoli swing him around on the cage roof. Jericho says he came up with the idea and noted that Claudio’s strength is a huge attribute and it was a chance to try and elevate him even higher than he was coming into AEW.
“Well it sounds like a broken record, but that was my idea. The reason for it is, okay Claudio came in, and I actually went and stood in the arena at Forbidden Door just to hear the reaction. Because I knew people would go nuts for him, but they went fucking nuts for him. And I was like, ‘They really, really like this guy.’ And once again we have a chance to build another main-event star very quickly. What’s the best way to do that? Focus on his strengths. And one of his strengths is his strength. He is so strong, it’s unbelievable how strong he is. And I said we’ll have him start, have him start with Sammy because Sammy’s very dynamic. He can make him look good. And then let’s continue through.”
Jericho noted how AEW had a smaller crowd in Daily’s Place last year due to the pandemic restrictions, and this time really wanted to emphasize the scale of the cage.
“This year, we have to because it’s essentially the debut of Blood & Guts. It’s the first time people are seeing how big this is with this giant crowd in Detroit, one of our biggest that we’ve had. We need to really, this puts us on a different level. This makes AEW look every bit as big as any other wrestling company in the world today. Let’s go onto the top. Sammy texts me a couple days [before], ‘Hey, I wanna take a bump off the top.’ I’m like of course you do, you wanted to take a bump off the last year, and I was like well I’m already taking it.’ So what could we do? How could we? Maybe Eddie throws him off. Great. And then maybe I put Eddie into the Walls and then maybe Claudio comes up and saves the day.
“And then Tony had the idea of two submissions and Claudio gets the tap-out first, which robs Eddie Kingston of his submission, which causes a little bit of animosity between those two. Story, story, story. So I just said fuck it, man. When he comes up there, you gotta give me the swing because people love it. He gave ‘Cool Hand Ang’ 20 spins. At Forbidden Door, people were going bananas for it. So I was like yeah, you gotta give me the spin on top of the cage.”
Jericho said that Claudio initially had reservations about the spot because the chain that lifted the cage was in the way, so Jericho said they could do it near the edge of the cage. Claudio once again was reluctant, but Jericho said he reassured him and said he was in total control.
“So we talked about the area we’re gonna do it, and then here it comes. I’ll tell you what, I was scared about falling off the cage. When I got into position for this spot, I was like oh my fucking god. And then he started spinning. There were seven rotations, which seemed like a thousand hours to do those seven. It was ten seconds. The first three, I was cool. Then I started to lose my mind. Because all I could see was the little people sitting in the crowd like this, [mimes spinning motion], little people, little people, little people. I’m like oh my gosh. How high up are we? This is terrible. I remember looking at him in the eyes because that’s the secret, you gotta look him in the eyes. I was like, ‘Stop, stop, stop, stop!’ And he put me down.
“Here’s the thing. Watching it back on TV, he was so in control, and he didn’t move out of this one little semi-circle. And we were probably [stands up to show distance], so there’s really no way I could fall unless he loses his balance. He wouldn’t lose his balance. Watching it back, I could have taken it 15 times because I was completely safe. Doing it, I was losing my mind, like oh my god I’m gonna fall off the edge.’ It’s so funny because I knew that people would respond to that spot. I didn’t realize just how insane it was until I watched it back, and people were telling me how insane they thought it was, and I was like, you know what? That is pretty crazy. Because all anybody’s thinking is one false step, and you’re done.
“I think it worked out really, really well, and I think we really put Blood & Guts on the map and took it to the next level to where it’s as impressive as anything you’ll see in pro wrestling at any point in time.”
Claudio Castagnoli won the ROH World Championship by defeating Jonathan Gresham in the opening match at Death Before Dishonor.
Read More: Claudio Castagnoli Discusses His ‘All-Star First Month’ With AEW/ROH
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