AEW superstar Claudio Castagnoli recently spoke with the Dallas Morning News to hype his showdown with Chris Jericho at this Saturday’s ROH Final Battle pay-per-view, where the Swiss-Superman will be challenging The Ocho for the ROH world title. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Commends Jericho on his title reign, but says he wants to win the belt back so he can bring honor back to ROH:
I would be a fool to say that Chris Jericho didn’t defend the title a lot, and in some tremendous matches and brought a lot of eyes to the Ring of Honor world championship just by defending against all comers in AEW. So, I would love to win the title back – A. So I don’t have to join the Jericho Appreciation Society, and B. So I can bring honor back to the ROH championship.
Says he wants to defend the title against talents who are grinding it out on AEW Dark:
And then I would like to defend it in a similar way that he did, but not against former champions. I feel like I would like to defend it against young talent that has been grinding their teeth, for example, on AEW Dark, and hasn’t had that chance yet to showcase that talent on television. Give them a shot at the Ring of Honor title because I feel like that’s what it’s always been and meant was to showcase new talent and give talent the chance [who may not have] another outlet. That’s what Ring of Honor always was. It was kind of the proving ground for people to prove how good they really were before mainstream saw it.