Claudio Castagnoli Comments On The Bar’s Success In WWE
Claudio Castagnoli is currently starring in AEW, but he recently took some time to reflect on one of the best parts of his WWE run when he formed a tag team with Sheamus known as The Bar.
During his WWE run as Cesaro, Castagnoli started a rivalry with Sheamus. They were put in a Best of 7 match series leading to the final match taking place at Clash of Champions 2016. The match ended in a no contest, so the Raw General Manager Mick Foley made Cesaro team with Sheamus.
The team of Cesaro and Sheamus did not get along right away, but then they bonded well in a bar setting while also learning more about eachother. They also realized they were really good as a team, so they became one of WWE’s best tag teams over the next three years.
As a tag team known as The Bar, Cesaro & Sheamus went on to win the Raw Tag Team Titles four times, the Smackdown Tag Team Titles once and were voted the WWE Tag Team of the Year by fans on Instagram.
Castagnoli recently appeared on the AEW Unrestricted podcast where he talked about becoming best friends with Sheamus while also explaining why it was the “funnest” three years in his WWE career:
“I think that was probably the funnest three years, I think with him for about three years, because everything you saw on screen, if you saw it as being from like starting as co-workers, I was just like, ‘Alright, I guess I’ll make this work’, to becoming best friends. We are both from Europe, so we have similarities, but we were not best friends. We were just like co-workers, cordial, and we talked. We were not best friends and we became best friends over those years and we are still best friends.”
“That bickering back and forth, non-stop, they would tell us, ‘Okay, we’re going to shoot backstage, you guys argue, and then you do this.’ We’re like, ‘Okay, cool.’ We start and they’re like, ‘You guys can stop. We’re not filming yet.’ We’re like, ‘Oh, no, that’s just us being us.’ So we had a great time, especially when we went internationally going to all kinds of football stadiums and stuff like that. If something’s authentic, it will connect with the fans, I feel, and that’s the stuff that you cannot fabricate.”
The Bar was split up in the 2019 Draft ending their run as a team after three years. Castagnoli debuted at the AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door pay-per-view in June after his WWE contract expired earlier this year.
While Sheamus continues to thrive in WWE after having a Match of the Year Contender with Gunther at Clash at the Castle, Castagnoli is also doing very well as the ROH World Champion in AEW. Castagnoli picked up a big win in the main event of Rampage on September 9th when he defeated Dax Harwood using the Sharpshooter for the win.