I had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the hottest names in the northeast indie wrestling scene this week, the “Top Talent” Christian Casanova, ahead of his performance in the third annual Limitless Wrestling Vacationland Cup.
The tournament streams exclusively on IWTV next Saturday, December 19 and will feature eight singles matches in the opening round. The four winners will compete in a four-way single elimination match to determine the winner of the Vacationland Cup.
The cup, previously won by JT Dunn and Anthony Greene, will not be the only thing up for grabs in this year’s tournament, however. The winner of this year’s Vacationland Cup will also earn the vacant Limitless Wrestling World Championship, a title that has only ever been held by Greene, a recent WWE signee, and All Elite Wrestling’s prodigious problem child Maxwell Jacob Friedman.
For Christian Casanova, entering the tournament for the third year in a row, a victory next Saturday would mark the culmination of several years of hard work and intentional transformation.
“I think it means even more to me, based on the fact that I had been on the very first Limitless show. Before Limitless was really even anything, or had any of the hype or buzz that it does right now. Being from New England, a mainstay for the longest time, I think winning that championship just means – started from the bottom, in a way. The true culmination in starting from the bottom and getting all the way to the top. I was a Michael Jackson impersonator at one point, and I just climbed the ranks little by little by little. Who better than me?”
“This is also my third Vacationland Cup. So it’s like, you better getting it right now, or never again. I think I’ve got more to lose than a lot of these guys, because I don’t see myself getting other opportunities again.”
Below is a transcript of my interview with Christian. We also dig into GCW For The Culture, as well as his original Michael Jackson gimmick and how Stokely Hathaway helped him carve out a more serious path.
Thank you to Christian for his time and openness in the interview and to Limitless Wrestling for setting it up. This feels like a good time to remind readers that they can use the code “LIMITLESS” for a free 5-day trial of IWTV!
Tell me about your original Michael Jackson inspired gimmick. I’ve seen footage of you coming out to “Billie Jean” in the bright red leather jacket with the hair done up. Did it come out of a need to stand out, to do something different, or did you just really like Michael Jackson?
“It was more like, I needed a character. I needed something to attach myself to. When you’re so new, you really have no identity. I was 19-years-old, so I didn’t even know who I was as a person.” … “It was something that I was, I’m gonna get my feet wet with this little gimmick for awhile, until I figure out who I want to be and who I am. After awhile I started getting really deep into it – like I was knees deep into that shit. The problem is that I wanted to be a serious competitive wrestler, I did not want to be the hokey-pokey gimmick guy at all. I just really wanted to be taking serious, and eventually I ended up turning heel at Chaotic Wrestling, and that’s where I brought the whole ‘Top Talent’ persona in. Everything after that just started clicking, and now it’s just me. For awhile it was a persona, and being cocky and flashy, and now I know who I am so it’s easier to just be the Top Talent. I am what I say.”
Stokely Hathaway, now Malcolm Bivens in WWE NXT, was one of the first guys to come alongside you and kind of take you under his wing, and it seems like he played a major role in helping to develop that “Top Talent” persona you have today.
“I needed that. I had just gone from the Michael Jackson gimmick to the Top Talent character, and one of the concerns a lot of people had was that I wasn’t going to be able to get heat as a heel. I had just come off being a babyface, and a gimmicky babyface at that.” … “When they put me with Stokely – I had known Stokely, but I didn’t know him that well. When they put us together it was a perfect match, because our personalities matched. Stokely is so talented, he can get anybody over. He can get heat for anybody, an dhe really brought out the best in me, personality-wise. He made it easier for the people to hate me, even though I was doing cool shit, and doing flashy shit. He definitely enhances whoever he’s with.”
In studying up for this interview I watched your matches with MLW World Middleweight Champion Myron Reed, someone I’m very familiar with and a big fan of. You two had some great battles. You’re two-up on him in singles matches, a win and a loss in tag matches, but what makes these matches and this sort of rivalry you have with Myron work so well?
“Myron is one of those people – he reminds me a lot of myself in the sense that no matter who you put him in there with, he’s going to have a good match. I know he’s confident in himself the way I’m confident in myself. He’s not going to let anybody make him look bad, but he’s gonna make you look even better than you are. When you’re both really good, the sky’s the limit. That was both of our mindsets, to go in that match and make each other look as good as possible, while making ourselves look better. When you get in the ring with people who elevate you to that limit, it’s magic. Myron and I have great chemistry, and we got along great. We’re both very competitive against each other. Healthy competitive, like we want to see each other win, but he’s gonna have to earn that win. We went at it like we were both genuinely trying to win and prove that we’re better than each other.”
We have to talk about For The Culture. This was a show I originally wanted to go to when it was happening during WrestleMania weekend. It ended up being one of my favorite shows of the year, and got the opportunity to find so many new wrestlers and personalities that I just had no idea about.
“Who did you find?”
Oh man.. Trish Adora, O’Shay Edwards, Mike Outlaw, Calvin Tankman. You, actually. I had seen some of your matches in Beyond Wrestling, but I’m a big fan of Tasha Steelz so when you came out together for the triple threat tag it clicked for me. That’s what hooked me.
“For The Culture was very, very special. When it first got announced I sent a tweet to AJ [Gray] like, I need to be a part of that. Before, everything that happened with ACH, it was a series of events that happened leading up to it being what it was.”
“I had been putting on ‘For The Culture’ in the New England area, saying ‘For the Culture, By The Culture’, just based off of the fact that at Chaotic Wrestling I was the first heavyweight champion of color in 20 years. That was something that I was – I said ‘I’m gonna change the culture here, I’m doing this for the culture’. It was bigger than me. That was something I was already saying, and then the whole thing with ACH happened, and For The Culture got announced. I had to be a part of it.”
“Even just being there, I felt like I was representing for all of New England. All the talent of color in New England and this whole area in the Northeast area that weren’t able to be out there. If you look at that card it was very scattered. People from the midwest, from the west coast, down south, but as far as New England representation there really wasn’t anybody [other than] Tasha Steelz and myself.”
“For The Culture was very special to me. A first time show like that of all black talent – just very cool, and it went off beautifully. Some of those matches are fantastic. I watched that show as a fan after my match and just loved every bit of it. 2 Cold Scorpio and AR Fox? C’mon.”
Shows like that are so important in exposing great talent, and I think we need to be doing a better job of promoting inclusivity in wrestling. I have this argument with people about there just being one women’s match on an indie card with ten matches. Of course you’re never going to see some of these great talent because they’re just not being given an opportunity.
“The way I look at it is, I completely agree with inclusivity, but at the same time it’s like – these people are just as talented as any other wrestler on the show. At the end of the day it’s not necessarily inclusivity. We’re just as talented, it’s not like we should be included – like [having one] women’s match – just to fill a quota. That was one of the big problems that I had, even with postering. You see a poster and… there’s maybe one or two people representing – you know, that’s not white or whatever. The point I’m trying to make is that it should be based off of talent, regardless. Inclusivity, that’s dope. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Gay, straight, it doesn’t matter. Girl or guy, black or white, if you’re talented you’re on the show. That’s how it should work.”
Check out Christian Casanova next Saturday, December 19 competing in the third annual Limitless Wrestling Vacationland Cup, streaming exclusively on IWTV.
