Claudio Castagnoli On Ricky Steamboat’s Influence On His Career, Wants To Face More Indie Talent On AEW Dark

Claudio Castagnoli cites Ricky Steamboat as a big influence on his career, and he recently weighed in on how he studied the WWE Hall of Famer to become a better babyface. Castagnoli talked on the latest AEW Unrestricted podcast about how he studied Steamboat’s work when he was during one of his first babyface runs in ROH, and recalled learning from Steamboat when he went to FCW. You can check out a couple highlights below:

On Ricky Steamboat’s influence on his career: “I watched so much Ricky Steamboat back in my ROH days, actually. Because that was one of my first times I was a babyface, and I was like, ‘What better babyface to watch than Ricky Steamboat?’ And I got like a 12 or 13 DVD collection of the best of Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat. And he’s amazing, I mean the way he moves in the ring, and the way he makes the audience feel, it’s second to none.

“And then when I got to go to FCW, he was there as a coach. And you know, to learn from him firsthand was just really cool. And then also, [it was] very special because you watch somebody on TV so much, and he’s there showing it to you… and he still looks great! He’s 70 years old, and he still looks fantastic. So that always makes me very happy when you see some of your idols or the people you look up to that are now older and they still are doing great. Gives me hope!”

On which independent talent he’d like to face: “I’m being honest. I’m not completely brushed up on my indie stuff because I feel some of the best talent is on AEW Dark. That’s where you can see all the best of the indie talents. There’s definitely a lot of talent on there that I still would like to get in the ring with, which is one of the reasons I came to AEW and I love it so much here because there’s so much talent beyond what you can see on TV. If you really love wrestling, you watch AEW Dark on YouTube because it’s just some of the best stuff that you haven’t seen yet, or that you will see in the future. Which is always — I feel like that’s what the fans kind of latch onto.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.