Johnny Gargano needed a break from wrestling.
After over six years in NXT, Johnny Gargano said farewell to the Black & Gold brand last December when his contract expired. Not quick to jump back in the ring, the one they call Johnny Wrestling has been taking time off to be with his wife, Candice LeRae, and their newborn son, Quill.
Appearing on the most recent episode of The Sessions with Renée Paquette, Gargano said he'd grown tired of always hearing people ask or tell him what to do next in his career. According to him, all he wants is creative freedom and the ability to have fun. Quill being born, however, helped solidify his decision to take some time off, focus on family, and detach from wrestling for the time being.
"I genuinely love NXT. But like, for so long people were like, ‘When Johnny's gonna move to Raw or SmackDown. When is Johnny gonna do this? When is Johnny going to do that?’ It's just that constant question and that constant like people saying, like, 'Go do this, go do that,’ Like, trying to take control of my career, and what I want to do, honestly, what I want from wrestling, I just I want to be able to have creative freedom, I want to be able to have these matches, tell the stories, and kind of just have fun and the minute it's not fun, the minute it becomes a job and it becomes stress and just your constantly beat down by stress is when I don't want to be a part of it anymore. So I kind of felt like the past year, hearing everything on social media dealing with all that crap, I was kind of like I want to take this year, put my all into it, kind of leave on good terms, kind of take a break, and luckily worked out where we had a baby. I don't know if the baby, like finalized my decision, because I had the idea that I wasn't going to re-sign. But I think if the baby wouldn't be on the table, and they came to me with a different eye, who knows what would happen. But the baby kind of came into play. I was like, ‘Okay, I definitely need to be in the best head space, as good head space as possible for when this baby gets here.’ So I need to completely detach from the wrestling stuff for a little bit and focus on him and focus on all that stuff," he said.
Continuing on, Gargano says he'd like to believe that his in-ring style will change now that he's a father, but knows that he's never not going to give his all to make sure everyone watching him gets their money's worth.
"It is in the back of my head where like, recently with Big E, and things like that… it's no secret that like what we do is very dangerous. At one second’s notice, your life can completely change. That's just how things go and that's the risk we take in the ring. I do want to say ‘yes, [his style will change] but also knowing me, and knowing who I am, and knowing that I'm never going to not want to give 110% — because that was the biggest thing for me is I felt like so many people have supported me for so long, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have in my career if it wasn't for wrestling fans, wrestling fans cheer for me, wrestling fans pay my salary, wrestling fans, you know, our whole pipeline of all of this and I never wanted to feel like I was taking money out of pockets. I never wanted to feel like I didn't give everything I had. That's almost, sometimes a detriment to myself, but if I have an idea, or I have something in mind that we could potentially do, and I don't do it if it's going to be good, and I don't do it out of risk of injury, I feel like I am robbing fans of a moment, and I never want to feel like I robbed anyone of anything. So I want to say yes, but I do know I'm going to get caught up in the excitement. I'm going to get caught up in being back in it. My wrestling brain right now is completely turned off. But I'm sure the minute it turns back on, it's going to be going a million miles an hour," he said.
WrestleCon and Gargano recently announced that the former NXT Champion would be appearing at the convention during WrestleMania weekend. Click here to learn more.
If you use the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
