Claudio Castagnoli, from Lucerne to the Catedral of lucha libre

Wrestling and Switzerland do not get along. The North American version made popular by WWE never took hold in the country and, unlike France, Germany and the United Kingdom, there is no tradition of independent promotions here. Yet anyone who has followed the sport for twenty years knows the name of a wrestler born in Lucerne: Claudio Castagnoli, known for a decade as Cesaro.

As a child Castagnoli started with tennis at six, then moved to football as a striker for the local side, supporting FC Lucerne. As he grew tall he took an interest in basketball, following the NBA on television. Wrestling arrived in his teens, and it arrived by a very Swiss route: he saw a Swiss wrestler on television, Siegmeister Rapo, who fought in Germany and occasionally in the United States, discovered that he trained in Zurich in an ordinary gym on simple mats, went to try it out and ended up travelling with him to Germany.

That is where the character was born. With another Swiss he formed the duo Swiss Money Holding, two rich Swiss bankers taken to excess. The more exaggerated the character, the better it worked.

The American choice

The best promotions were in the United States, Japan and Mexico. Castagnoli chose the American route at a particular moment: WWE had absorbed its main rival and created a monopoly, which pushed many enthusiasts towards the independent circuit, booming in the mid-2000s. People traded videotapes back then: that is how he discovered Extreme Championship Wrestling, then Japanese wrestling, then Mexican lucha libre, which he fell in love with.

He has explained that every promotion has its own rules, tastes and audience, and that the better you adapt your style, the better the reception. After a spell in Chikara and Ring of Honor he earned the nickname Swiss Superman for his physical strength, built rivalries with Eddie Kingston and Nigel McGuinness, and developed a heel character founded on his European background, superior intellect and sense of fashion.

From 2012 he joined WWE full time under the name Cesaro. He became a pillar of the tag team division and delivered acclaimed matches against Sami Zayn, John Cena and Sheamus, but management hesitated to promote him permanently to the top, fearing his true-wrestler style would not suit a product built on entertainment.

The move to AEW changed the picture. The promotion worked with Japan's NJPW and Mexico's Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, which let him return to where he had failed. In the mid-2000s he had spent a month in Mexico City trying to make his name at the Arena México, without success. Twenty years later he fought there on Friday nights as CMLL world heavyweight champion and as AEW's first athlete with a dual Mexican contract. The Arena México, he recalled, is also called La Catedral, and walking down those steps you feel what it has meant to people.

He held that title for 112 days before losing it to Hechicero at Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. He says he never imagined any of it: he wanted to become a professional wrestler, not a champion. He still fights every week in AEW and in CMLL.