Claudio Castagnoli Says ROH World Title Caps Off His ‘Brass Ring Month’

At ROH Death Before Dishonor, Claudio Castagnoli captured the ROH World Championship when he defeated Jonathan Gresham 

It marked the first major championship for Claudio, who has been considered one of the more underutilized talents in wrestling by fans. In 2014, Vince McMahon famously said Claudio wasn’t connecting with the fans and that he needed to “grab the brass ring.”

During the ROH Death Before Dishonor media scrum, Claudio was asked if winning the ROH World Title was his “brass ring moment.”

“What is a brass ring moment? If somebody can find that out and explain it to me, that would be amazing. It’s definitely an awesome moment and I feel life and wrestling is all about moments and how you seize them, how you act in them, and how you succeed in the good ones and the bad. That’s the journey. Everything I did in my life and in my career led up to this. If that’s a brass ring…I would say the first month was kind of a brass ring moment because it was ‘okay, how do you replace arguably one of the best wrestlers in history in Bryan Danielson?’ I have to step up. I don’t want people to be like, ‘Well, I kinda wanted…(Danielson).’ To be able to pull that off, then go into Blood & Guts. To me, this is great and a fantastic challenge. If this is the culmination of my brass ring month then it’s a good one,” he said.

Tony Khan said that Claudio was originally going to be a surprise for ROH Death Before Dishonor, but an injury to Bryan Danielson led to Claudio being Danielson’s replacement against Zack Sabre Jr. at AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door. 

If you missed anything from ROH Death Before Dishonor, check out Fightful’s full report on the show by clicking here. 

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