Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano is one of the greatest feuds WWE NXT has ever produced. Ciampa still wishes it had stopped a chapter early.
After climbing the ranks as the tag team #DIY, Ciampa turned on his partner and lit the fuse on a white-hot rivalry that eventually pulled in the NXT Championship. The two stayed tangled together right up until Ciampa left WWE for AEW in January. Speaking with James Stewart on Stick To Wrestling, Ciampa said the story should have ended on the last NXT show before COVID shut everything down.
We did get them pretty hot on the last televised show pre-pandemic. That show is when we did a big crash off the stage and it was the final show before Tampa Bay. The crowd was great, everything was great, and the pandemic hit. What was supposed to be a one-off at the Performance Center became regular weekly shows at the Performance Center because we couldn’t have a crowd. That really put a damper on things.
What came next was the cinematic warehouse brawl, and it landed with a thud.
We had that warehouse match that didn’t get the praise we were hoping it would get. It was a tough spot. That was the time Undertaker did the cinematic match with AJ, and Bray did it with Cena. We filmed ours first, but it aired after. They had crazy fireworks. We had no production elements. It just was two dudes in a warehouse fighting.
Ciampa’s verdict is blunt, even if time might soften it.
For me, I do wish we just left it alone. It makes it hard for me…ten years, 20 years from now I think I’ll be able to appreciate it more. During it, what a blast. It was the time of my life.
