The following was said by Vince McMahon about Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), on Steve Austin’s podcast in 2014.
“He’s not connecting yet and we hope he will. He doesn’t quite have the charisma. He doesn’t quite have the verbal skills as well, and maybe because he’s Swiss, I don’t know, in terms of the European style. But those are the big things that he’s lacking. The audience needs to care about you. They need to be able to feel your presence. You need to be able to project that. He’s an extraordinary physical talent, extraordinary. But at the moment, and hopefully he’ll get it, he lacks ‘it.’”
During Starrcast V, Claudio discussed what Vince stated with Chris Van Vliet.
“I thought he was wrong. I feel charisma comes in different forms, shapes, sizes. Not everybody has that over the top Ultimate Warrior, shaking the ropes, crazy yelling, screaming type of charisma. Not that I’m sitting here telling you how awesome my charisma, but I felt I had a connection with the fans in the United States and all over the world. While other people are known for long promos that are translated in many languages and doesn’t always come across, my stuff was about the in-ring work and people can connect with that. It may take a bit longer, but I did connect with a lot of fans and they were behind me. I don’t know if it’s not what he was looking for, but in the end, it brought me here and you guys are here to see me.”
(h/t to Fightful for the transcription)
