As the ROH World Champion, Claudio Castagnoli wants to represent the best wrestling on the planet.
Castagnoli won the title by defeating Jonathan Gresham at ROH Death Before Dishonor on July 23. In doing so, he captured his first world championship.
When asked about the future of ROH during an interview with Kevin Kellam of Sportskeeda Wrestling, Castagnoli noted that he wants to see ROH remain its own brand. He also expressed his confidence that, after the success of ROH Death Before Dishonor, the company will hold more pay-per-views.
“I mean to me, I wanna keep representing the best wrestling in the world, which is [what] ROH always stands for, and then AEW kind of took over on that. So I think we’re still trying to figure out what the future for Ring of Honor exactly holds. I know there’s plans for some more pay-per-views, hopefully they’ll be announced soon, and I don’t know what the exact details are. But with the success of Death Before Dishonor, it would only make sense to do some more and then hopefully see what else we can do. But I think that’s the goal, to keep Ring of Honor alive and as its own brand," he said.
As the champion, Castagnoli is looking forward to having any number of dream matches, and he pointed out that plenty of fresh matchups are available for him, both in AEW and ROH.
“I mean to me, that’s the ultimate goal because that’s what the fans want to see. That want to see certain dream matches. They want to see exciting matches and people going up against people they’d never faced, and for me, that’s almost everybody in Ring of Honor and [AEW]. So I’m very excited. For example, I’m going up against [Takeshita] at Battle of the Belts August 6, so I’m very excited about that, defending my Ring of Honor World Championship. So I’m very excited for that and there’s so many more matches that are possible," Castagnoli said.
It's currently unclear when ROH will host another pay-per-view. Tony Khan has made it clear that securing a television deal for the company remains the goal.
Castagnoli will defend the ROH World Championship against Konosuke Takeshita at AEW Battle of the Belts III. You can check out the updated card here.
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