“How do you learn to fall off a 20 foot ladder?”

That’s the refrain World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) fans have been hearing for years, urging viewers at home — especially kids — not to try in their own backyards the things they’re about to see on television.

It’s practical advice. Don’t jump off a ladder that’s more than six metres tall. And definitely don’t do it when you’ve got a mate laying on the ground waiting to cushion your awkward, un-athletic fall.

But jumping off six metre ladders is exactly what eight men are about to do, all in pursuit of a championship that isn’t exactly awarded on athletic merit.

Tomorrow, eight professional wrestlers will compete in a ‘Money In The Bank’ match for the industry’s richest prize — The WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

In the weird world of professional wrestling, being told you’ll win the championship doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the fittest, fastest or strongest.

It’s more like a lifetime achievement award, an acknowledgment that you’re the best at this bizarre craft and can put on a great show every night.

It’s also an acknowledgment that you’re popular. People will watch you on TV, buy the T-shirts and put a bum in every seat in arenas around the world, 250 nights a year, all because of you.

Wrestling is a multi-billion dollar business, and if you’re the top guy you’re considered, as the saying goes, money in the bank.

At 10am (AEST) tomorrow, eight men will use everything at their disposal — tables, ladders, chairs, maybe even a kitchen sink — to try to get their hands on the shiny gold belt which will be suspended above the ring.

The man who climbs the ladder and grabs the belt wins the right to be called champion.

As these men walk out for the Money In The Bank match tomorrow, the winner will have already been decided, but all the hard work will lay ahead for the competitors as they’re tasked with putting on a show that the hundreds of thousands of people watching around the world have never seen before.

One of those men, the 195cm tall, 105kg mountain of muscle known only as Cesaro, spoke to news.com.au about what it’s like to put your body on the line in pursuit of the title.

And for him, it’s all worth the risk.

“Everybody wants to be champion. There’s high risk but there’s high reward. You can’t just sit around and risk nothing, that’s boring. You have to go out and grab life by the horns — or in my case climb the ladder and win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.”

It’s a funny thing about pro wrestling. Nobody bothers to pretend anymore that what we’re seeing isn’t a staged event — a group of superfit athletes putting on a show where the outcome is pre-ordained but it’s all about the journey anyway.

When Daniel Craig does a promotional tour, he doesn’t speak to the media in character as James Bond, but as Cesaro speaks to news.com.au he stays on-script — albeit with a wink and a nod.

He’s a heel — a bad guy — and he plays the character well.

We’re ‘lucky to speak to the champion before he even wins’, he informs us as he discusses his match tactics and pays homage to his ‘manager’, the evil genius, Paul Heyman.

The ‘tactics’, it turns out, are quite simple.

“Don’t fall off,” Cesaro says. “You want to climb the ladder at a time when you have the least chance of being pushed off.

“It’s so dangerous because as soon as you fall someone else will see that and try to capitalise on that. That’s how it’s happened in past Money in the Bank matches. So that’s what I’ll be trying to avoid on Monday.”

“It’s very dangerous and it’s also very exciting to watch, especially with the stakes that high, with the championship being up above the ring. We’ll be willing to risk more. The challenge is to find out who will put the most on the line.”

And while the outcome may be known to the competitors, the action itself is anything but fake. You can’t fake falling and these guys will be falling a long way. So how does it feel?

“Terrible,” the superstar says. “There’s no good way to fall off the ladder. That’s why it’s so dangerous.”

For Cesaro though, it’s all worth it. This match is the culmination of years of hard work for a kid who grew up admiring 90s superstars like Canadian brothers Bret and Owen Hart and the hugely physical and notoriously short-tempered Steiner brothers.

“When I was a kid I was a huge WWE fan. Every kid looks up to superheroes, and WWE superstars are essentially real life superheroes. They were who I looked up to as a kid and I followed my dream and now I’m a WWE superstar.”

Cesaro was born Claudio Castagnoli in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1980. Watching WWE (Then known as the World Wrestling Federation or WWF) as a kid, he broke into the business in Europe in 2000.

A speaker of five languages — English, German, Italian, French, and his native Swiss-German — Cesaro honed his craft across Europe and in Japan, where wrestling fans are notorious for their love of aggressive wrestling and having a thirst for blood.

Over the years he’s played an evil Swiss banker, a Japanese guy and even wrestled under a mask as something called ‘A Very Mysterious Ice Cream’. (Wrestling can be a very strange business when you really look into it)

In 2003 he packed his bags and headed for the United States where he won the Green Card Lottery on his first attempt, allowing him to become a permanent US resident and chase his dream of being a WWE superstar.

Today he’s on the road for more than 200 days a year, performing for fans in every US state and around the world, all while trying to stay in peak in-ring shape and avoid injuries.

It’s a tough slog, but Cesaro has earned a reputation as one of the toughest in and out of the ring.

“I earned that reputation on what I can do in the ring and I think that’s a fair assessment. There are a lot of guys who are strong in the weight room and that works for them. But if that doesn’t translate to what I do in the ring then it doesn’t matter. I’m not a professional ‘worker outer’, I’m a WWE superstar. That’s why they call me the Swiss superman.”

And how do you remain one of the fittest athletes in the world, all while spending most of your time eating airline food and staying in terrible hotels?

“There’s no such thing as an average day. I get up, eat, go to the gym, eat again and head to the show. We have five shows a week. Afterwards you grab a bite to eat, head to the next town and do it all again.”

“I eat about six meals a day. Between my workouts and my very physical style of wrestling I burn a lot of calories so I have to eat all the time.”

“I work out between three and five times a week. I do a lot of Olympic lifts. To me, how much I benchpress doesn’t really matter. What matters is my in-ring condition — that I can still do my big moves late in the match and I’m still strong as time goes on.”

For the record though, he can deadlift 256 kilograms.

All the deadlifts in the world won’t matter come Monday morning however, when eight men enter the ring and reach for the belt — suspended 25 feet above the ring — which represents the pinnacle of their industry.

They’ll all walk out already knowing who the victor will be. But what matters to them is putting on a show, taking risks and performing death-defying moves that will leave fans on the edge of their seats. It’s all a show, but if you can suspend disbelief for a few minutes, it’s a very entertaining show.

But win, lose or draw, they’ll all get up the next morning to do it all again.

You can watch Money In The Bank on Main Event, or catch the action live when WWE tours Australia in August.