Tommaso Ciampa Hits Out At “False, Awful Narrative” Around NXT Run
Tommaso Ciampa wants to set the record straight.
Although Ciampa had a brief dalliance with WWE between 2005 and 2007, it was during his return to the company in 2015 that he began to make his name with the WWE faithful. Upon his return, Ciampa featured in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and became an NXT mainstay.
During his time with the Black and Gold brand, he teamed with and fought against Johnny Gargano as NXT enjoyed an incredible burst of popularity, with stars such as Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Finn Balor, Sasha Banks, Bayley and more taking centre stage.
Due to NXT’s success, it was often said that stars on the brand such as Ciampa and Gargano didn’t want to move the main roster. There was also a belief among fans and the media that they wouldn’t be used as effectively on Raw or SmackDown.
However, in a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Ciampa has hit back at these claims. The former NXT Champion said it was more of a case of wanting to build something special with NXT, than avoiding Raw and SmackDown.
“When we were in NXT, there’s this false, awful narrative that has now since been created that drives me crazy because people will look back at some of the NXT stuff and just be like, ‘Yeah, well, they didn’t want to go up’, or ‘They didn’t want to get called up’ or like, ‘They were scared of this.’ It’s like no.
We were creating, like, that group of guys. NXT blew up when it came from like Sami Zayn and Claudio, Cesaro, to the Kevin stuff to Bayley and Sasha and then our group coming in with Finn and Shin and then into like Johnny and I and Undisputed. If you were in that room at that moment, you knew how special it was.
It would be like going to ECW and saying, ‘Hey, Tommy Dreamer and Sandman and Raven, you guys don’t want to leave this place and go, you know, because WWE, that’s where the big stars are. Do you want to go do like WrestleMania? Yes, but I want to see if we can make this WrestleMania first. That’s literally what it was.
It was like, can we get 10,000 people? Can we get a million-dollar gate? Can we do that multiple times? Can we get TakeOver to be equivalent to Mania? Can we do 20,000? Like our mindset was like, Oh, we’re gonna get TV now. How far can it go? It wasn’t like it was a weird us against them and it wasn’t like we don’t want to go there. It’s the same company, same umbrella. We’re not stupid. We know. We want to make this thing bigger than that.”
Tommaso Ciampa Was Made To Apolgise From Controversial WWE Segment
Back in 2005, while working with WWE, although not under contract, Tommaso Ciampa served as Muhammad Hasan’s lawyer.
Hasan’s place in wrestling infamy was secured on the July 7th episode of SmackDown when he along with a group of masked assailants attacked The Undertaker. After the attack they carried off his manager Daivari, who had been decimated in a match against The Undertaker, as an apparent martyr.
The segment was considered in extremely poor taste, something compounded by the fact it aired on the same day 52 people were killed in a terrorist attack in London. The segment had been taped in advance of the show.
Following incredible Backlash, Hasan was removed from television, and his “legal representation” played by Tommaso Ciampa was made to issue an apology.
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co