Johnny Gargano reflects on nearly being signed to a “second-tier” NXT contract, a type of contract that was also pitched to Samoa Joe and would never actually come to fruition for anyone.
Johnny Gargano was Mr. NXT during a good portion of the black and gold era of the brand. Shortly after the brand switched over to NXT 2.0, with less of a focus on independent wrestlers, Johnny Gargano left WWE, taking some time to enjoy being a new father.
Speaking with Renee Paquette on The Sessions podcast, Johnny explained that he was originally going to be offered a different tier of an NXT deal, which would allow him to still compete on independents and be used by NXT as needed, similar to some of the contracts AEW offers today.
However, Tommaso Ciampa needing surgery, and hesitancy from WWE's legal team, changed all of that.
“I was very lucky,” Johnny began. “Obviously, from the time I started, until the time I ended in NXT, things were vastly different. When I first started, I was brought in as an extra, me and Tommaso, our story has been told a million times, but literally, we had a tryout where we were told, ‘No, there isn't a spot for you in NXT, but we might be doing this Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Tournament that maybe we will put you guys in for like a one-off.’ So we did the Dusty Classic, it went well, and William Regal was, obviously, a big liaison for us that would always try to get us on the show every week because he knew there was potential there. He knew what he had in us. Every week, I had to either text William Regal or text the writer at the time, Ryan Ward, and say, ‘Hey, are we going to be used?’ They're like, ‘Yeah, will bring you down for another extra spot.’”
“We would always hear this thing like, ‘Maybe we'll give you this weird contract, where you can still do indies and we will also have you do NXT,’ like when that was being discussed at the time," he said. “[Samoa] Joe was gonna be under it when he was initially brought in. It was a weird thing that never ended up happening because legal was like, ‘Wait a minute, what are we doing here? We can't do this.’”
Johnny then explains how Tommaso Ciampa needing surgery changed everything for himself and Candice LeRae as well.
“I had to bug Canyon Ceman literally every week, ‘Is this contract happening or not?’ He would be like, ‘It's happening. We just gotta go through legal.’ It never happened. It got to the point where it was going to happen — this is even funnier how this works out. It was going to happen they sent us to Pittsburgh to get medical [examinations], to get the process going. Tommaso’s medical came back bad because his shoulder or something needed surgery and Hunter was like, ‘Well if his shoulder needs surgery comment why don't we just sign them, move them to Orlando, and we'll pay for the surgery, and everything, and we'll just give them a full-time deal.”
Johnny explains that for some reason, he and Ciampa had been seen as a package deal and this meant that the three of them would be living in an apartment in Orlando, Florida shortly after he and Candice got married.
“I was like, ‘What the hell? I have a sweet deal worked out where I was going to be able to live in Cleveland and still do stuff, but now we're going to move to Orlando?’ So, they signed us to full-time deals, moved us to Orlando. Me and Candice literally got married, I think, like the week or two before we moved it to Orlando. So we got married, never got a honeymoon or anything, because we had to move to Orlando to report to NXT,” he recalled.
Johnny then explained how he and Tommaso Ciampa were looked down upon early on in their careers with NXT because independent wrestling was still not as accepted in the world of WWE before the Cruiserweight Classic Tournament.
“We started there and we were always still kind of looked at as indie guys, extra guys, smaller guys, things like that," he said. "Especially during that time period before the Cruiserweight Classic, the indieness of NXT didn't really exist yet. Indie wrestling still kind of had a bad rap, you were still looked down upon before the Cruiserweight Classic and then everything blew up, everyone got signed. But from the time I started until the time I ended, I gained so much trust, I feel, with the people in power, I gained so much trust with basically everyone in the office to where I always had a pretty good say on things I did and didn't do. I would always be able to write my promos, I would always be able to give input, they asked me what I wanted to do creatively, that never changed my whole time.”
Currently, Johnny Gargano is taking time away from wrestling to enjoy being a father but he will be in Dallas, Texas taking part in Wrestlecon. Learn more here.
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