Johnny Gargano’s Final NXT Promo Inspired Cesaro To Leave WWE

Cesaro was certainly one of the most talented Superstars in the WWE and for many fans, he was severely underrated. Cesaro never realized his potential in WWE and fans were disappointed because of this. He was also inspired by Johnny Gargano to leave WWE.

The Swiss Superman eventually left WWE and made his long-anticipated AEW debut at the Forbidden Door pay-per-view event. Johnny Gargano left WWE NXT earlier this year and since then has been enjoying his time away from pro wrestling.

Prior to that, he cut an emotional promo to the NXT fans in his last appearance for the show. While speaking during Starrcast V, Claudio sat down with Chris Van Vliet and explained his thought process as he decided to leave WWE. Cesaro revealed he was inspired by Gargano’s final promo in NXT to leave WWE.

“A lot of thought, actually,” he said when asked how much thought went into his decision. “I may have felt for a while that I needed a change. Leading up to it, there were a bunch of signs. A bunch of stuff that different people said where they may have not even realized that they said it that kind of helped me make up my mind. One of the things was Johnny Gargano’s last promo in NXT where he said to ‘always bet on yourself.’ That was like maybe the last straw. ‘Yup, he’s 100% right.’ It was a lot of things leading up to it. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because a lot of people do. When Cody left the first time, he made that list of who he wanted to wrestle. After that, everybody made a list. It was the new favorite thing.

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I wanted to do it differently. I’m against the grain a lot. ‘Everybody is doing this, let me try to do this over here.’ I felt it was better that way because I figured if I want to keep wrestling and I pop up somewhere, it’s going to be a bigger surprise. Wrestling is all about moments and if I would have been like, ‘Alright, I’m leaving,’ then people would have known and it would have been, ‘Okay, I’m gonna show up somewhere.’ If it’s quiet then it’s ‘what’s going to happen? When is it going to happen?’ That’s the beauty in wrestling. You want to be surprised. Yes, you want to know, but you also love being surprised. To me, that’s a very important thing. You do know, maybe, but there’s always that doubt. That’s what makes magic happen. I feel I’m more action than talking.”

Johnny Gargano also left WWE because he didn’t want anyone to be in control of his time. Cesaro is happy in AEW now that he is the ROH World Champion and that’s all that matters.

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