AEW's Claudio Castagnoli Reveals He Once Saved THIS Star's WWE Job

The current ROH World Champion helped this talent keep his job.

by Andrew Pollard
Claudio Castagnoli Tyler Breeze
AEW/WWE

Current AEW star Claudio Castagnoli has revealed he once saved Tyler Breeze's job during the pair's time together under the WWE banner.

Of course, Breeze is no longer with WWE, but he did manage to have a 11-year run with the company from 2010 until 2021. And according to Castagnoli, it was a match with the Swiss Superman that at one point saved the Canadian from getting fired.

Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet (via Wrestling Inc.), Claudio explained:

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"I just got [to FCW] and I wrestled my first match ever against him on FCW TV. I don't think they were very high on him at that time, which I don't know, and the Uppercut he was talking about was when I pop the guy up and I Uppercut them on the way down, and he just took it like a madman and went super high in the sky and I took his head off. I Uppercutted his head off, but saved his job in the process because they were not high on him before."

Upon signing with WWE in 2010, Breeze initially went by his real name of Matt Clement before soon becoming Mike McGrath and later Mike Dalton. By 2013, a year after FCW had been rebranded as NXT, the hugely charismatic star re-debuted as Tyler Breeze.

During his time with the market leader, Prince Pretty won the NXT Tag Team Championships with Fandango and was a genuine standout of the early days of the NXT brand. Both Breeze and 'Dango were released by WWE in June 2021.

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In the case of Claudio, the nowadays ROH World Champion signed with WWE in 2011 and spent his first six months alongside Breeze in Florida Championship Wrestling.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.