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Ex-WWE Star Wins Title In First AEW Match

By Monika Thapa • Published Feb 01, 2026 07:57 EST
tommaso ciampa wwe aew

Ex-WWE star, who recently joined AEW, wins his first match in the Jacksonville-based promotion.

Earlier this year, in January, Tommaso Ciampa left WWE after his contract expired and he chose not to renew his deal. Shortly after leaving WWE, Ciampa signed with AEW and made his debut on the January 28th episode of AEW Dynamite.

Following his debut, Ciampa competed on the January 31st edition of AEW Collision at Esports Stadium Arlington in Arlington, Texas, where he challenged Mark Briscoe for the AEW TNT Championship in his first AEW match.

The closing moments of the match saw Ciampa hit Briscoe with a German suplex, followed by a running knee strike to pick up the victory and become the new TNT Champion.

Why Tommaso Ciampa left WWE For AEW?

Speaking to Sports Illustrated in a new interview, Tommaso Ciampa revealed why he left WWE and joined AEW. He said:

“It’s something I’ve been leaning towards for quite some time. I don’t know that I can say there’s one sole factor that led to it or caused it. I think it’s one of those things when your contract is coming to an end, you naturally have discussions.”

“If I wrestled in the 90s, I’d wanna be a part of ECW… Early 2000s, you wanna be a part of Ring of Honor. I was lucky I got to do that a little bit. 2010s, I think for me at least, I wanted to be part of NXT Black and Gold. And when I looked at the landscape of professional wrestling in the 2020s… the answer was AEW, man. That’s what I want to be a part of.”

“For a long time, I had to listen to people tell me, not so much directly to my face but more so online, that 2018 was prime Ciampa. I’m a hundred times better now than I was then. That was nothing. That was absolutely nothing.”

I’m physically better. I’m mentally sharper. My storytelling, my psychology is on a whole different level than it was back then… what people are about to see is going to blow their minds. It’s gonna shock the world, because I finally have a shot to find out if I’m as good as I think I am.”

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