Mick Foley Says AEW Star Should Have Been WWE World Champion
Mick Foley believes WWE missed their opportunity to make a veteran wrestler into a World Champion.
When Mick Foley was the General Manager of the WWE Raw brand from July 2016 until his ouster in March 2017, he was involved in a storyline between two rivals who became friends: Sheamus and Cesaro.
There was a Best of 7 Series set up between Sheamus and Cesaro that didn’t have a winner due to there being a double countout in the seventh. The persistent Foley kept on working with the duo, which led to Sheamus & Cesaro having a lengthy reign as the tag team known as The Bar, which included Tag Team Championship gold.
While Sheamus remains a WWE guy, Cesaro left WWE after 11 years when his contract expired in 2022. Cesaro left for All Elite Wrestling and went back to using the Claudio Castagnoli name he had used before WWE since it’s his real name.
Claudio has been featured prominently in AEW for the past two years as a two-time former ROH World Champion and a current AEW Trios Tag Team Champion. Claudio has also been part of the Blackpool Combat Club group with Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson & Wheeler Yuta although the group has recently fractured.
Foley had Claudio on his mind when speaking “Monopoly Events” with Rikishi when he mentioned the former Cesaro as a guy who should have been a World Champion in WWE.
“I held the title three times for a total of 42 days — like I was the transitional champion. I’m glad I had it, but I don’t think I’d be thinking of my career as any lesser if I’d never held it.”
“Cesaro should have been given a run with the title that’s because Cesaro reminded me of like the old school Jack Brisco, Dory Funk, traveling champion who could literally have a good match with anyone.”
During his WWE run as Cesaro, Claudio Castagnoli was a former US Champion and held the WWE Tag Team Titles seven times, which included five title reigns with Sheamus.
Mick Foley Remains With WWE Under Legends Deal
It was recently reported that Mick Foley had signed a new WWE Legends deal recently. It’s not expected that Foley will be featured on WWE television any time soon. However, a Legends Deal enables a Hall of Famer like Foley to be featured on merchandise, video games, and as an action figure.
Recently, Mick Foley made comments about Vince McMahon that angered a lot of people because Foley said he was choosing to appreciate McMahon until more details were known about the serious allegations made about Foley’s former boss.