Claudio Castagnoli has revealed that a promo from Johnny Gargano helped him to make his decision to leave WWE.
Castagnoli left WWE in February, after he and WWE were unable to come to terms on a new deal. Two months earlier, in December 2021, Johnny Gargano finished up with WWE after his contract expired.
During Gargano’s final NXT appearance before his hiatus, he cut a passionate promo, before he was attacked by Grayson Waller.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Castagnoli revealed that this promo inspired him to move on from WWE, noting:
“I felt for a while that I needed a change, and then leading up to it there were just a bunch of signs, a bunch of stuff that different people said. That just kind of helped me make up my mind.
“One of the things was Johnny Gargano’s last promo in ‘NXT’ where he said to ‘just always bet on yourself.’ That was just like maybe the last straw … He was 100% right.”
Gargano made his WWE return on the August 22 edition of Raw.
Explaining why he didn’t publicly make a big deal about his WWE departure, Castagnoli said:
“When Cody left for the first time, he made that list of who he wanted to wrestle, and then after that everybody made that list. I just want to do it different.
“I’m kind of against the grain a lot. … I felt it was better that way because I figured if I want to keep wrestling and I pop up somewhere it’s a bigger surprise, and I feel wrestling is all about moments.”
Castagnoli is the current ROH World Champion, most recently defending his gold against Dax Harwood on the September 9 edition of Rampage.
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Transcription via Wrestling Inc.
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