Looking back at the tournament, Castagnoli feels it was an overall success.
In December, AEW wrapped up their first-ever Continental Classic tournament and the tourney concluded at the Worlds End pay-per-view. Eddie Kingston defeated Jon Moxley to hold onto the ROH World and NJPW STRONG Titles and became the AEW Continental Champion.
The Continental Classic is a round-robin tourney and there were gold and blue league brackets. One of the names in the blue league was Claudio Castagnoli and he placed fourth out of six talents.
Castagnoli appeared on The Mark Hoke Show and expressed his thought that he should have won the tournament, but that’s out of his control. From a company and fan perspective, he feels it was a success and he hopes to win it in 2024.
I mean yeah, of course, personally, I think I should have won it (AEW Continental Classic). But you know, certain things are out of your control and I think if I take a step back and look at it from a fan perspective and from a company perspective, I think it was very successful, because it was fun, it was something different and something you can see nowhere else and I think the fans were looking forward to it every week and it’s like, you kind of knew what matches are going to happen. You kind of had an idea, but then it’s like, it’s fun. It’s like a sport… There’s anticipation building and then you have the matches and the outcomes were different and it’s all top talent, as in it’s all guys who are really, really good. So of course, it can go either way. It’s not super predictable where… you could look at each roster and be like, okay, I know who’s gonna beat it. Top two guys and the bottom two guys in this block and that block. You could have picked either way, you know what I mean? Which is I think it’s very important for the fans and I think it helped AEW grow and just get a little very focused. It was, this is what it’s about and it’s the prize at the end of the tournament… From a fan perspective and from a company perspective, I think it was very successful and I hope it’s gonna happen again next year, so I can win the damn thing.
The current Continental Crown Champion Eddie Kingston has defended the titles three times since winning the tournament.
His latest defense was against Gabe Kidd at NJPW Battle in the Valley and that match resulted in a double count out.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit The Mark Hoke Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
