#6 – Cesaro
I've been following Antonio Cesaro (going by just "Cesaro") now since he was Claudio Castagnoli. I've seen him wrestle live for Ring of Honor, Chikara and WWE. I've seen him team with Chris Hero (aka Kassius Ohno) and success on his own as the PWG World Champion. By the way, if you're not watching PWG, you're missing out on the most fun wrestling product currently on the market.
Cesaro has had an interesting journey in his brief two years with the WWE. They paired him with Aksana, playing off his European background, and tried to do the whole exotic foreign heel thing; the gimmick didn't pick up a ton of steam. He won the United States Championship, held it for a respectable 239 days, but it wasn't until Zeb Colter enlisted him in the ubber popular Real Americans that he started to take off. Nearly a year later, and Cesaro seems on the brink of a babyface turn and a major singles push sans ultra-conservative blowhards. Fans are chanting "We the People" with fervor. You can feel it in the air when he's in the ring. Every since he started the Cesaro Swing, the only logical choice was to turn him. Basic logic says you can't give the fans something to chant, and do a move they love seeing, and still get them to hate you.
The self-proclaimed "Swiss Superman" has everything it takes to be a world champion, except time. He's a really tall guy – you can't tell because Jack Swagger is also incredibly tall, but he's approaching 6'5". He's an excellent wrestler, capable of working good-to-great level matches with anyone. But he's also 33-years-old, and while Cesaro seems to be in excellent condition, WWE can't wait another four or five years to find out if he can run with the proverbial ball.
