News

Tommaso Ciampa Explains Why He Left WWE For AEW

By John Canton • Published Jan 29, 2026 22:15 EST
Tommaso Ciampa AEW

Tommaso Ciampa has given some insight into why he’s All Elite after a decade in WWE.

On the January 28th edition of AEW Dynamite, Mark Briscoe successfully defended the TNT Championship against El Clon in a great match. After the match was over, Briscoe said he wanted to have a TNT Title Open Challenge match on Collision, this Saturday, January 31st.

That’s when Tommaso Ciampa made his official AEW Dynamite debut. It was reported weeks earlier that Ciampa wouldn’t stay in WWE after his contract expired, and he even posted on social media that he was ready to move onafter 10 years with the company.

The former 2-time WWE NXT Champion and 2-time WWE Tag Team Champion got in the face of Mark Briscoe, while the on-screen graphics referred to Ciampa as the “Psycho Killer,” a name he has used in the past.

When Ciampa got into the ring, he told Briscoe he was coming for that, and Briscoe held his title up. Ciampa kissed Briscoe on the cheek and left. The graphic was shown on the screen for Briscoe facing Ciampa on Collision this Saturday night. Ciampa kissed his daughter at ringside before making his way to the back.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Tommaso Ciampa admitted it felt like the right time for him to join AEW.

“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.”

Tommaso Ciampa Wants To Be A Part Of AEW

As a 40-year-old with 20 years of experience in pro wrestling, Ciampa has had success in the independents, he was one of the greatest NXT wrestlers in WWE history, and now he thinks AEW is the perfect fit for him.

“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.”

Ciampa would go on to say he feels like he’s a better performer now compared to his best days in the NXT in the late 2010s.

“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.”

Tommaso Ciampa will get a chance to prove he’s at his best right now when he challenges Mark Briscoe for the TNT Title on AEW Collision on January 31st.