AEW superstar and current ROH world champion Claudio Castagnoli recently appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vilet to discuss a wide range of pro-wrestling-related topics, including how the Swiss-Superman came up with his most famous signature maneuver, the big swing. Claudio, who has been using the move for over 15 years, reveals that he decided to try it after watching an episode of Dancing With the Stars. Highlights from the interview are below.
Says he came up with the big swing by watching Dancing With The Stars:
“When you don’t have the option of Netflix or anything, and you just have cable, I don’t know why but “Dancing With The Stars” was on, and they always have the cool lifts, right? Where they flow people around and everything. One of my Mexican teachers, Skayde, he watched like gymnastics or whatever and just figure out new moves watching anything. So, I watched that because they always had really cool lifts the way they picked people up … and they did a variation of that, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ so I went and tried it out and came up with the move pretty much.”
Thinks Orange Cassidy was the first person to take the move:
“I don’t know, maybe Orange Cassidy back in the day, it actually could be.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)