Claudio Castagnoli Addresses Vince McMahon Saying He Lacks Charisma And 'The It Factor'

Claudio Castagnoli has always been known as a workhorse, but during his time in WWE, Vince McMahon never saw him as someone who could take the brass ring. McMahon even admitted as such during an infamous appearance on the "Stone Cold Podcast" back in 2014. He shared his belief that Castagnoli, who was known as Cesaro in WWE, was missing a connection with the WWE audience. Many WWE fans disagreed with McMahon at the time, feeling the company didn't put in much effort to capitalize on the momentum of Castagnoli's WrestleMania 30 moment, where he won the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. While WWE paired Castagnoli with Paul Heyman, the focus was always on Brock Lesnar. During an appearance on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet," Castagnoli shared his thoughts on McMahon believing he didn't connect with the fans.

"I thought he was wrong," Castagnoli said. "I feel charisma comes in very different forms, shapes, sizes. Not everybody has that over the top Ultimate Warrior, shaking the ropes, running around, crazy, yelling, screaming type of charisma. Not that I'm sitting here telling you how awesome my charisma is, but I felt that I had a connection with the fans, with the WWE Universe, whatever you wanna call it, in the United States and more importantly as well all over the world because while other people were known for long promos that get translated into many different other languages and doesn't really come across, my stuff was always about the in-ring work and people can connect with that."

Back in February, news surfaced that Castagnoli's WWE contract had expired. Castagnoli ended up signing with AEW and made his promotional debut at the Forbidden Door crossover pay-per-view on June 26, defeating NJPW's Zack Sabre Jr.