The internet wrestling community (IWC) is a fickle group. Considering that when today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards had the 2019 Best Gimmick winner come out the 2020 Worst Gimmick winner, that should show you how fickle the community happens to be. And for what it’s worth, they can also turn on a wrestler on a dime.
There are few wrestlers the IWC has yet to turn their back on, and that’s Cesaro. The former Claudio Castagnoli has had a strange journey in the WWE that has taken him through the company and actually found him a great deal of success, and yet somehow the IWC views Cesaro as one of the WWE’s most underrated, and underutilized stars. Somehow, this is an argument where you can stand on either side of the argument that he is, and he isn’t. For what it’s oddly worth, Cesaro’s WWE career is the strangest case of Schrödinger’s cat in professional wrestling. He is simultaneously underrated and underutilized and yet not all at once.
So for quick reference, this is a thought experiment that illustrates a paradox of a position. The title thought experiment says a cat is both simultaneously alive and dead being linked to an event that may or may not occur. In the case of this, I present to you The Curious Case of Schrödinger’s Cesaro.
The internet has called Cesaro underrated and underutilized most of his WWE tenure. He has in-ring skills that few people can compare to in the company, and for a guy that isn’t a jacked monster like Brock Lesnar, he does feats of strength that I’m not even sure Lesnar can do. Despite winning the United States Title a handful of months into his WWE tenure, Cesaro has spent the bulk of his career in the company as a tag team wrestler to a degree of high success.
Let’s put that aside for now. Cesaro was the first ever winner of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. During that run in 2014, Cesaro was inches away from main event greatness. They gave him a trophy ceremony and after turning his back on Zeb Colter and the Real Americans tag team with Jack Swagger, suddenly Cesaro had become a Paul Heyman guy. The pairing instantly got over with the crowd. With rumors Vince McMahon didn’t see Cesaro as a skilled guy on the microphone, the pairing of Heyman and Cesaro could have been magic. Let Heyman talk for the Swiss Superman and it was a license to print money for the WWE. Fans were into the idea the moment it looked to be a thing that happened.
WWE cut Cesaro off at the knees every chance they got. They quickly dumped the Heyman pairing, in addition to having Cesaro cut the Cesaro Swing out of his arsenal. The move was popular among fans and considering they were pushing him as a heel, they didn’t want that. The Swing wound up showing off just how strong he was, showing he could swing anyone from Rey Mysterio to The Great Khali. Cesaro continued to job, but every time the WWE looked like they were on the verge of pulling the trigger on a push for him, the crowd responded. They were hungry for it, and they still are.
And then came the sharpest condemnation yet from the higher ups in the WWE. In 2014, Stone Cold Steve Austin interviewed Vince McMahon and flat asked him why Cesaro hadn’t gotten over yet. McMahon claimed Cesaro lacked charisma, verbal skills, and the “it” factor. But did he lack those things? Most people would say no. The moment the fans know the Swing is coming, they go crazy for it. Even with his previous theme, the crowd instantly went crazy when they heard the sirens that signaled the start of his theme, along with the 007 style entrance that saw him rip off a suit to reveal his physique. If it’s the verbal skills, many would argue against that after a recent episode of Talking Smack, but they had paired him with Paul Heyman to fix that. And the “it” factor? Considering how the fans have continued to get behind Cesaro despite the lack of push he’s received says he has “it.” Fans haven’t given up on the idea of Cesaro being a top star in the company, something they’ve done after waiting for years to see them get behind other stars. The IWC believed in Dolph Ziggler until they didn’t. It’s safe to say they’ve given up on other favorites like Sami Zayn as well. The torch still remains for Cesaro, despite a mountain of evidence that proves they don’t see him as a main event guy, despite the fact even John Cena once said Cesaro should be main eventing every night.
So yes, Cesaro has been criminally underrated and underutilized by the company. Even now, when momentum was slowly building for Cesaro after two wins over Daniel Bryan and a babyface turn that got fans energized for him again, Cesaro got cut off at the knees and they took the safe way out by choosing Daniel Bryan. Was that a bad choice? Hardly. But in the last few years when midcarders like Mustafa Ali and Kofi Kingston have touched the rarefied air that have had fans believing we were on the verge of seeing a new star created (and in the case of Kingston, finally getting the recognition after being in nearly the same boat as Cesaro), Cesaro being in the position they have now seemingly given to Bryan could have solidified his status as a singles star.
And yet somehow, Cesaro is a star. Despite all of these things we’ve spoken on that have proven the WWE just doesn’t believe in Cesaro as a money maker, he’s a former US Champion and a 7-time Tag Team Champion between the two sets of belts. The Bar, his team with Sheamus, is one of the most successful tag teams the WWE has had in their time as a duo and even managed to feature on three straight WrestleManias. For a team that many would consider makeshift, the duo managed to get over, get popular, and get successful. While many more people are polarized on Sheamus as an in-ring performer, the duo was undeniably great as a pair and arguably just as good in ring. Sheamus may be far more criminally underrated in the sense of his in-ring skills compared to Cesaro, but the chemistry they had as a team in addition as opponents during the storyline to build the duo up was clear from the start.
So why talk about their success? As a duo, Cesaro and Sheamus won Tag Team gold five times. Four on Raw and once on SmackDown. The duo had memorable moments for good and bad reasons as well. Cesaro’s grit was shown in a match the duo had against the now-Jon Moxley and Seth Rollins where after getting thrown into a turnbuckle and losing two front teeth, Cesaro continued the match despite a bloody mouth and finding out that the teeth had been pushed up into his upper jaw. His grit and determination from that match didn’t just show the fans how tough he was, it became a best selling shirt on WWE Shop.
Cesaro is a staple of WWE weekly television. On SmackDown, it’s rare not to have an episode where he isn’t featured in some capacity, while during his tenure on Raw he was also a regular feature or at least on Main Event. For guys like Humberto Carrillo and Drew Gulak, it’s a battle sometimes to even end up on Main Event but Cesaro almost always finds himself on WWE television in some form every week. That’s an accomplishment usually given to the top stars of the company. Mustafa Ali was given the leadership role of a faction that was at one point a top storyline on Raw and yet somehow still fights for television time. Even Murphy, who at one point was on Raw weekly alongside Seth Rollins with the Messiah/Disciple dynamic, can’t even find a way to television time or a throwaway use in the Royal Rumble.
So how is he underrated and underutilized? Cesaro had a 239-day United States Title Reign. The combined 5 reigns of Sheamus and Cesaro as tag team champions went 341 days, in addition to the 145 days combined between his championship runs with Tyson Kidd and Shinsuke Nakamura. In the 3,234 days since Cesaro became an active member of the main roster, he has been a champion 725 of those days, which represents about 22% of his time on the roster. So almost a quarter of his time has seen him holding gold. Compare that to a star like Kevin Owens, who has been on the main roster 2,111 days and has worn gold for 2,111 days or 19.6% of his time on the main roster. Owens’ time as a champion doesn’t even include his NXT Title reign. Importantly, Cesaro’s 239 day reign as United States Champion represents the 21st longest combined day reign of the belt’s existence dating back to the NWA. It’s also the second longest reign in the company since his arrival on the main roster. Only Moxley/Ambrose’s 351-day reign lasted longer. That puts Cesaro’s reign ahead of top WWE stars like John Cena, who’s two reigns in WWE gained critical acclaim for the US Open challenge, Owens’ own reigns which established him as a top guy in the company, and even the 175-day reign of Bobby Lashley, who was considered a dominant champion.
Is it the perception that has people still classifying Cesaro as underrated? The fact that people would rather see him thriving as a singles star because they considered Sheamus a proverbial albatross around his neck? Is it that many think he should have held more gold in the singles ranks? Maybe it’s the fact that unlike almost any superstar in the 3,234 days Cesaro has been a main roster star, he has come inches from grabbing the proverbial brass ring on so many occasions only for it to be yanked away from him for one reason or another.
The truth rests somewhere in a murky in-between of both arguments. Cesaro isn’t underrated or underutilized because the WWE recognizes exactly what they have in him as a commodity. He’s a guy who is legitimate enough as a tough guy and a top wrestler to slot into any area of the card they want and need. He’s a guy who continues to get television time and usually finds himself quickly in the title picture when they want to use him in one. He finds himself constantly getting television time on a brand that doesn’t have the luxury Raw does. Raw gets three hours to show off their talent, in addition to the extra hour that comes with Main Event. SmackDown gets one less hour and doesn’t have the bonus of Main Event being taped before hand.
And yet somehow he is exactly underrated and underutilized. For some of the victories he’s been given, Cesaro deserves to be in the main event scene of the company and possibly primed for bigger things. Every year, we as fans say Cesaro is in position for bigger and better and yet it never really happens. The brass ring remains painted by his fingertips and yet never fully in his grasp. The WWE has somehow done a job that they haven’t done with any other superstar in the company. Guys like Ricochet and Aleister Black are ones fans want to see pushed to the top of the card and yet somehow damaged good enough that nobody believes it will happen anymore. Dolph Ziggler is a star everyone believed would break the mold and show he could be an HBK-esque main eventer, a top guy despite not having some of the size Vince McMahon loves and yet somehow became the gatekeeper for new talents before fans eventually simply stopped believing in him. What the WWE has done with Cesaro is managed to make him the guy that while nobody really believes they’ll make a main event star, everyone would believe he could be one if WWE decided one day to give him the opportunity to become one.
Cesaro is underrated and underutilized. At the same time he is not. And so the curious case of Cesaro remains just that – curious.
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