Claudio Castagnoli has been back in pro wrestling for less than three weeks and he already has a world title match lined up on pay-per-view. He’ll challenge Jonathan Gresham for the ROH world title at Death Before Dishonor on July 23 in Lowell, Massachusetts.
The match was made official on tonight’s (July 15) episode of ROH AEW Rampage. Gresham retained the gold in a match against Lee Moriarty. The champ cut a promo afterwards, where his manager Tully Blanchard reiterated that Gresham is the best technical wrestler in the world.
Claudio Castagnoli must have taken exception to that claim. After all, he just defeated Zack Sabre Jr. at Forbidden Door and believes that makes him the best technical wrestler in the world.
I’m putting words in Claudio’s mouth there, because he didn’t actually get to say anything to Gresham. Claudio came out onto the ramp and stared down the champ. That was enough to earn a title match with Gresham on July 23.
Commentary mentioned multiple times that Claudio has never won the ROH world title. Perhaps that will change and he’ll be the top guy in ROH when all is said and done next Saturday night.
Here’s the current lineup for Death Before Dishonor:
• FTR (c) vs. The Briscoes in a 2-out-of-3 falls match for the ROH Tag Team championship
• Jonathan Gresham (c) vs. Claudio Castagnoli for the ROH World championship
• Samoa Joe (c) vs. Jay Lethal for the ROH Television title
• Mercedes Martinez (c) vs. Serena Deeb for the ROH Women’s championship
• Wheeler Yuta (c) vs. Daniel Garcia for the ROH Pure title
Do you plan to order the show next weekend?