The pair were called up to wrestle as a team on Raw and SmackDown in February 2019.
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Former NXT star Johnny Gargano has reflected on his short WWE main roster call up alongside good friend Tommaso Ciampa.
The pair were called up to wrestle as a team on Raw and SmackDown in February 2019. Speaking on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Gargano noted that he believes he and Ciampa were set to feud on the WWE main roster. He said, “I believe we were at Raw or SmackDown and Tommaso (Ciampa) saw the doctor and Tommaso pulled me aside and said, ‘They’re pulling me. They’re making me go get surgery’ and then when that happened.
“I was like, ‘Okay, well what do we do now?’ Because I think the ultimate plan was for us to do Raw and SmackDown stuff but keep doing NXT stuff as well because Tommaso’s the NXT Champion and I was the North American Champ. I just lost it so, but, Tommaso had to get neck surgery.
“I remember as soon as I heard that, I texted Shawn (Michaels), I texted everyone and I was like, ‘Hey, Tommaso’s out. If there’s no plan –’. If the plan was just for me and him to be a tag team and then I think the plan was for me and him to be a tag team, the turn to happen, me and him to feud up there. I’m not really sure logistically, but, ‘If you don’t have plans right now, just send me back to NXT so they have somebody that could main event this TakeOver’ and then everyone agreed that.
“‘Okay, we’ll send you back and then we’ll bring you back eventually’ and then luckily, the USA (Network) deal happened and then they’re like, ‘We need Johnny on USA’ and then it was just one of those things where it never got talked about again.”
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Gargano then went on to say that the wrestling world is a stressful environment. “It’s just such a stressful environment and some people are great in that environment, some people love the stress, some people love that atmosphere.
“I really like to know what I’m doing, I really like to know how much time we have and if time gets cut, that’s fine. But I just like to know and have a hand in the story and the process and things like that. But like I said, everyone in WWE is great, they’ve always treated me great. But, it’s just the environment sometimes is a little wild, as you know.
