Dutch Mantell spoke with WrestleZone about Cesaro’s WWE departure and what could have been.
Former WWE manager Dutch Mantell spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard to promote the SportsKeeda Wrestling Awards. Mantell (known as Zeb Colter then) was paired with Cesaro and Jack Swagger as the “Real Americans” in WWE back in 2013, and he said he doesn’t understand why the company never truly pushed Cesaro to the heights that he could have been. Mantell said Cesaro should have been a huge international star, but instead developed the stigma of being the guy that would lose the match on TV.
“I don’t know how old he is. But I think his tenure in WWE was more or less wasteful, because they let a super talented guy that speaks five languages — especially in Europe, I mean he would be [incredibly over]. He speaks German, French, I think he speaks Dutch, Spanish, English, and maybe one more. So he’s a great, great [asset], probably the strongest guy in WWE. I don’t know why they never got behind him,” Mantell said.
“When he went on TV in WWE, you automatically thought that he was gonna be the one getting beat. Because they did it to him way too much. Way too much and I think he kinda got hot when he was with me and Swagger. Because he brought him over, he got heated up. And I thought that was the idea of putting him with me is to heat him up, but they didn’t even let that set before they took him and gave him to Heyman. And then he died again. See I would have thought if they put him with me and Jack before we split,” Mantell explained, “Me and Jack would have turned on him and got something out of it. We got zero out of it.”
The Usos defeated Los Matadores, The Real Americans and RybAxel in a Fatal 4-Way tag team elimination match for the WWE Tag Team Championship, and Mantell says it was not only an example of the company making the wrong call, but serving as a learning experience too.
“We were heels but we were getting more cheers than The Usos were getting. It was down to three teams, and then Jack and Cesaro, they got [eliminated] Then when we were walking up the ramp, I turned to Jack and Cesaro and I said, ‘you hear that?’ They said, ‘hear what?’ I said, ‘exactly. You don’t hear anything. You know why? Because we’re out of the match.’ [The fans] wanted us to win it. Now we’ve sucked the air out of the building, and now they didn’t care. And I think that both those guys learned something that day,” Mantell noted, “because if you take away hope, you don’t have nothing. And I think when they yanked those guys out of the match at that point, then people didn’t give a crap who won then.”
