Ex-Imperium Member Debuts In Major Non-WWE Promotion

A former member of WWE’s Imperium group has apparently found a new home.

Giovanni Vinci was a part of the WWE roster from 2017 to 2025. Vince was part of the NXT and NXT UK brands for several years before moving on to the main roster.

During his WWE run, the Italian-born Vinci first used the name Fabian Aichner (his real name) and formed a tag team with Marcel Barthel, who would later become Ludwig Kaiser and now El Grande Americano. The duo was also paired with WALTER, who became Gunther, and they were part of the Imperium group.

Aichner and Barthel were 2-time NXT Tag Team Champions together, but they were not pushed that hard on the main roster.

After being released by WWE in February 2025, Aichner spent more than a year on the sidelines, taking a break from pro wrestling.

That break ended on May 14th during a live episode of TNA Impact when Cedric Alexander ended Leon Slater’s long reign as the X-Division Champion.

Following Alexander’s win, Fabian Aichner appeared for his TNA debut and pointed at the new champion as if to say he was coming for the X-Division Title.

For Aichner’s entrance, TNA used the Veni Vidi Vici slogan on the screen that Aichner used during his WWE run as well.

WWE Utilized Giovanni Vinci In A Strange Way During Final Appearances

After being drafted to the SmackDown brand in the summer of 2024, there were video packages about Giovanni Vinci coming to the brand as a rich guy with a big ego. It appeared as though he might receive a mild push after that, but it never happened.

In his final two SmackDown matches in September 2024, Vinci lost to Apollo Crews in 0:04 and 1:37.

When Aichner/Vince spoke to Chris Van Vliet recently about that period, he admitted that it went differently than he expected.

“I thought the plan was to get me going right away, and I didn’t find out about that till basically the day of the show. So at the end of the day, you’re a professional. Whatever the plan is, you try to make the most of it.

I do have to say, as far as entrance-wise, that was my favorite entrance I’ve ever done. Because in the group, I always felt a little bit like I tried to fit in. That’s why I didn’t stand out. Whereas with that character that I did in NXT, and it worked great there, doing that on the main roster, I just felt like, ‘Okay, I have some sort of direction, who I am, what I’m supposed to do.’ Was my favorite entrance, personality-wise, charisma-wise and everything, and then the plan changed the day of.

Looking back now, I feel like from a business standpoint, if you look at the positives, it definitely got attention, definitely got people talking. The unfortunate thing for me is just that not more came out of it, because I feel like we could have done a lot of cool stuff with that character on SmackDown.

I know Apollo and I could have tore it up in a match. We did in NXT. We did on Main Event. We have great chemistry. It was just things just kept happening.

We moved to a different channel two weeks after then the next thing happened. I wasn’t on TV for a little bit.

And, yeah, that’s just one of those things that are a little unfortunate. Because I saw myself actually having really good matches with the guys in the United States title picture at the time, like Melo, LA Knight, Andrade at the time. I think we could have done some cool stuff there. But, yeah, it is what it is.”

Check out Fabian Aichner’s TNA debut below.