Triple H discusses the injury to Tommaso Ciampa and how plans changed.
On Thursday's NXT TakeOver: New York conference call, NXT senior producer and founder Triple H was asked about the injury to Tommaso Ciampa and how that changed their plans leading into TakeOver.
In answering the question, Triple H revealed that WWE knew about the injury but were hoping to delay the recovery period.
"Obviously, we knew about it. We knew it was going to be a necessity going forward but the decision was made of 'let's do this' with the main roster. Let's give him that exposure. He'll take some time off, get fixed up, and be back and better than ever. Unfortunately, with the type of injury he had, it went from one thing to another very rapidly. We couldn't wait," said Triple H. "It changed from being something manageable to being something that...it was not a risk we were willing to take for anything. So, we moved to him immediately doing the surgery. A lot of thought put into all the conversations but clearly something we knew about. There was a plan for him on all aspects of it, including him taking time off down the road to get it fixed."
Triple H continued, "We knew the length of time, probably, that it was going to take for a return. As you're looking at this, there are certain things that are manageable and you can manage the situation (where) there's no risk, no damage, no anything. You're just managing the symptoms and getting to where you want to have...you know it's something you have to take care of eventually. Then, that situation changed. Instead of being manageable, it progressively got worse. When we saw that, we made the decision, with him to go in the direction we did."
Ciampa was originally supposed to defend the NXT Title against Johnny Gargano in what may have been the culmination of their storyline, but a neck injury has sidelined Ciampa for the foreseeable future. Prior to the injury, Ciampa was called up to the main roster and working on Raw and SmackDown along with NXT.
There is no timetable set for Ciampa's return.
