On the 10th of December of 2021, Johnny Gargano, the true heart and soul of NXT, announced in no uncertain terms that his contract with WWE was up and he was now a free agent. He was now selling new merch on Pro Wrestling Tees, and he was reopening his Twitch stream to the public. And thus, an era of greatness in WWE had well and truly come to an end.
There are two questions this poses: first being "Why is Johnny not re-signing with the company that made him a star?" and the second being, "Why is this the end of NXT as we know it?"
In answering the second question first, it's simple: the NXT that we have had the honor and privilege of watching weekly for the last six or seven years is over. We could get into the ins and outs of why this is, but the simple truth is that NXT was always supposed to be the future. That's how it was originally designed by people like Dusty Rhodes and Triple H and Shawn Michaels. It was supposed to take young talent that were either up-and-comers or home-grown talent and work with them daily to get them ready for the big time. The initial NXT wasn't what we've seen for the last 7 years; it was more of a reality show and it sucked. Then that changed over to FCW, and there, we were introduced to the likes of Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Big E and Roman Reigns just to name a few and those guys definitely found success on the "main roster". But when that was transitioned into the NXT of 2014, which was to be found only on the now-defunct WWE Network, it was a weekly hour-long pre-taped show that not only continued to showcase their home-grown talent, but they were working hard to bring in more experienced talent from other promotions like Ring of Honor, TNA/Impact, PWG and New Japan and this product became something very different from shows like Raw or Smackdown. NXT was, for lack of a better term, simpler. The storylines and rivalries weren't overly complicated or overly melodramatic. This was a show for fans of wrestling as opposed to "sports entertainment".
Truth be told, I didn't start watching NXT until some time in early 2016 when a friend of mine, knowing of my growing passion for wrestling, told me to check out this show and a wrestler named Finn Balor. After watching a few episodes of NXT, I was hooked. Not only did I love Balor, but I loved performers like Sami Zayn, Bayley, Asuka, Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, The Revival, American Alpha, and yes, even Enzo and Big Cass.
Once wrestling fans started to hear more and more about NXT, the more they started tuning in and the more popular it became, it was clear that they were starting to look for more indie scene darlings and fewer home-grown people.
Enter Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa.
He was immediately beloved by the NXT audience as he wrestled dark matches for the Full Sail crowd and soon found himself teaming with Tommaso Ciampa in the team that would inevitably become DIY. Even with the imposing presence of Ciampa, Johnny still made DIY the ultimate babyface tag team. He was a fast southpaw who was a magnificent technical wrestler, but his smaller frame and babyish looks would cast him as the eternal underdog.
I remember watching the subtleties of the storytelling that both he and Ciampa had created when they were competing against each other in the Cruiserweight Classic. Ciampa had Johnny beaten but couldn't take the aggressive shot that would have won the match. And then when it came to the first Takeover Toronto where DIY, after failing to beat The Revival at Takeover Brooklyn II for the tag titles, they got a shot at them again in a two-out-of-three falls match which saw the much-beloved underdog team finally winning the titles. This was the first time that Gargano would be in a match that would end up being hailed as a MOTY by WWE fans, but definitely not the last.
And it was also not the only time that Gargano had a championship that he wouldn't retain for very long. At the very next Takeover in San Antonio, DIY lost the tag belts to Authors of Pain. DIY would face AOP once more at Takeover Chicago, but this time in a ladder match. Of course, Takeover Chicago would be a day that would live in infamy for Gargano and Ciampa as the show closed with this match, leaving DIY to make their way up to the stage as the crowd continued to back their favorite babyface tag team...
At least they did until Ciampa would turn heel and viciously attack Gargano, hitting him with running knees and and Air Raid crash through a table in the stage pit to solidify the turn.
This was, in kayfabe, due partially to Ciampa's jealousy about Johnny's inevitable singles run due to Ciampa dealing with a non-kayfabe knee injury that would keep him out for months. Johnny quickly rose to becoming NXT's top babyface. And Johnny would rise through the singles ranks to take on NXT champ Andrade Cien Almas at Takeover: Philadelphia. Johnny seemed to have Andrade on the ropes, but Almas' manager, Zelina Vega, tossed a DIY shirt into the ring, and Johnny, after losing concentration, lost the match. Again, this would not only be the first match since Punk vs Cena at Money in the Bank 2011 that Dave Meltzer would give a five-star rating to, it was also voted as MOTY for WWE. And as fellow wrestler and wife Candice LeRae brought him up the stage to receive cheers for the match they just put on, but Tommaso Ciampa would return from his injury on a crutch and smash Johnny across the back with it. So while Johnny's role as top babyface would continue, the role of top heel was fully attained by Ciampa with this attack.
When Ciampa came back to Full Sail the first time after this attack, he had straight-up nuclear heat. He never even spoke in the first promo; he just came back out to a sea of boos that just got louder each time he tried to bring the mic up to his lips. But this was not Johnny's only problem; he still was being taunted by Almas and Vega, and that led Johnny to put his career on the line as he demanded one more championship match against Almas and if he couldn't beat him, he'd quit WWE. Of course, he did lose the next match, which took place during a normal episode of NXT, but it was due to Ciampa interfering and in the world of kayfabe, Johnny had to leave NXT. But this was just prelude because Ciampa was soon cleared to start competing again but Johnny had appeared in the Full Sail audience wearing a luchador mask and attacked Ciampa while he was cutting a promo so it was made official that during Takeover New Orleans that Gargano and Ciampa would main event as an unsanctioned match (since Johnny was "no longer employed" by WWE) and if Johnny won, he could return to the roster. And after another barnburner of a match, Gargano would use Ciampa's crutch to lock in the submission for the win.
But this still wasn't a clear path to the NXT championship for Gargano. By this time, Aleister Black held the title after his win over Almas at Takeover New Orleans, and all of his efforts were still being outdone by Ciampa who did everything he could to insert himself into the title picture and halt Johnny's momentum. Takeover New Orleans hadn't finished anything between Johnny and Tommaso. It was just the first part of a trilogy of Takeover main event matches that saw Ciampa become more powerful and Gargano's obsession with destroying his one-time best friend turned worst enemy. Ciampa and Gargano would have a Chicago Street Fight at Takeover Chicago II which ended with Ciampa winning, and then Ciampa would challenge Black for the NXT title and during that match, Gargano saw that Black was about to get blindsided by Ciampa wielding the belt and inadvertently (?) struck Black with the belt leading to Ciampa winning the NXT Championship. Things turned even darker for Gargano after Black attacked both him and Ciampa, and after it was declared that they would have a triple threat match at Takeover Brooklyn IV, Black was assaulted in the most dangerous place in all of professional wrestling: the Full Sail parking lot. He never saw who assaulted him, but it left him sidelined (due to a non-kayfabe groin injury) just ahead of Takeover and it was just Gargano and Ciampa in a Last Man Standing match for the title.
This is where we need to start talking about Johnny's Takeover ring gear.
In all the matches where he was pure babyface, he wore ring gear inspired by the best of the Marvel superheroes: at Takeover Philadelphia, he wore Star-Lord gear; at Takeover New Orleans, it was Thor: Ragnarok gear; at Takeover Chicago II, he wore Infinity War Captain America gear. But when he came out for the Takeover Brooklyn IV match, he was wearing Venom gear, which was clearly meant to indicate he was wrestling with his dark side.
Of course, Johnny would lose the match at Brooklyn as Ciampa would worm his way into the win despite how desperately and violently he fought. Within a few weeks, Black returned with a fury demanding to know who assaulted him. Naturally, we all assumed it was Ciampa, and there were a number of other suspects. But after a short time, Gargano revealed that it was him that put Black on the shelf with a shocking superkick to Black's face.
And it was now official: Johnny Gargano, the ultimate babyface, was a heel.
At Takeover Wargames, Johnny, wearing Punisher-inspired gear in a grudge match against Black, where Black picked up the win. The truest brilliance of his gear was that it was in line with his belief that whatever he was doing was righteous because all roads were leading to him taking out Ciampa and the ends would justify the means. But he needed a title, so he would challenge the then-North American champ Ricochet to a match at Takeover Phoenix for the strap. Wearing Dark Phoenix-inspired gear, he would end up defeating Ricochet and capturing his first singles title in NXT.
I know I'm giving a lot of information on Johnny's lows and highs in NXT that can be found anywhere else, so it's time to talk about things on a more personal note.
I was there at Takeover Phoenix and it was the best wrestling show I've ever been to from start to finish. And yes, despite how much I love Ricochet, I was totally rooting for Johnny. That's how solid my connection was to Johnny since the beginning of his NXT career. Johnny was instantly lovable. He was like my hometown boys, the Chicago Cubs, in that respect. No matter how many times he came up short, I kept believing in him. When he initially turned heel, I had no choice to respect the chutzpah he had as a man simply trying to avenge a wrong done unto him no matter who was in the way. Whether this was more the work of Triple H or Hunter, Johnny and Tommaso working together, it didn't matter because it was perfect.
Because for me, Johnny was the perfect wrestler. He didn't do crazy spot-fest matches, nor did he do extremely technical matches. He was a blend of Shawn Michaels and Bryan Danielson: the technical savvy of Danielson but the showmanship of HBK. His matches, particularly his Takeover matches, were some of the best, most emotional matches I think WWE has done in the last decade. None of them ever felt like he and his opponents were just going through the motions. His work as his character has never felt perfunctory. This was a man who was in it to win it, and even if he didn't win the match, he would still win the crowd.
Back to the story.
Johnny had won the North American title and would take it to an episode of Raw and an episode of Smackdown in the same week and he had embraced his heel self and ended up teaming with Ciampa, who was still NXT champ, and defeating both Raw tag champs and old rivals The Revival on that episode and on Smackdown, they would defeat The Bar together as well. This whole ill-conceived "Let's show the regular crowd what these NXT guys can do" guest appearances (which also included Aleister Black and Ricochet) didn't amount to literally anything for either Ciampa or Gargano since they were never seen again on either show to date. But something had happened between Takeover Phoenix and those live episodes of Raw and Smackdown: on NXT, Johnny had his first defense of the North American title against Velveteen Dream (back when Dream was over AF, and it wasn't common knowledge that he was a total fucking scumbag). Did we mention that, at this time in WWE Network history, all episodes of NXT were pre-taped?
Two endings were filmed for Johnny's first title defense; one where he retained and one where he lost. And in order to craft the best story, they went with the one where he lost the title. But Ciampa still held the title, and despite his best efforts to prove otherwise, Johnny was still in Ciampa's orbit (or vice versa) and they reteamed for a kind of mirror universe "Dark" DIY as they went after the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic cup. They were defeated by the team of Aleister Black and Ricochet and during that episode, as Gargano and Ciampa headed back up the ramp to the stage, they held onto one another in the exact same way they did at Takeover Chicago when Ciampa turned heel. And in that same way, Ciampa was ready to turn on his longtime friend/enemy one more time...
But when Ciampa was about to throw Gargano into the LED board, Johnny stopped him and shoved him into the LED board instead and started to beat the hell out of him to the raucous cheers of the Full Sail audience. Johnny's sudden face turn was another great example of how NXT was able to pull off long-term booking and made it clear that the story they had started nearly two years prior was about to culminate on Wrestlemania weekend at Takeover New York where babyface Johnny would go to war with heel Ciampa for the NXT title.
However, reality got in the way.
Ciampa, who had been working through several neck issues, had decided that it was time to get the neck surgery he needed in the weeks leading up to Mania weekend, thus forcing him to vacate the NXT title. While the final chapter in the Ciampa/Gargano feud was still waiting to be written, focus shifted to the other top heel in NXT: the Panama City Playboy Adam Cole (bay bay) and he and Gargano would go at each other in a two-out-of-three falls match for the NXT title at Takeover New York.
Admittedly, I haven't been into wrestling/sports entertainment as long as so many others, but that match at Takeover New York, voted as Gargano's third Match of the Year was the first time that a match ever made me cry.
It was the partial culmination of the story that NXT had been telling one way or another since May of 2017; the fall and rise of Johnny Wrestling. A story that was so well told and with a climax that paid off in the biggest fashion possible, which was Gargano defeating Cole in the third fall to win the NXT Championship. And when that ref counted three, I cried. This is what good storytelling can do. It was frightening for a moment when, after Candice came out to celebrate with her husband, Ciampa made an appearance at the top of the stage. But kayfabe was broken and the three embraced and all was right with the world.
Johnny Gargano's NXT Championship title reign lasted fifty-seven days.
Cole began to argue that since he won the first fall in that title match, he deserved another shot. It was granted, and at Takeover XXV, Johnny lost his first title defense.
Again.
Gargano then took on Cole again at Takeover Toronto, once again in a two-out-of-three falls match, but by hook and by crook, retained his hold on the title.
And then everything changed as NXT would switch from the WWE Network and air on the USA network as a two-hour show to run opposite the "upstart" All Elite Wrestling promotion and their flagship show Dynamite. And the main players started to change slightly. Instead of Gargano and Ciampa, it was more the land of Adam Cole, Matt Riddle, Keith Lee, and Karrion Kross.
But another main even player was inbound, and that was Finn Balor's return to NXT (believe me, I could write a lot about how Finn was misused in almost every possible way after being injured in the first Universal Title match the company had ever had, despite his triumphant ascent to the top of the card in NXT, to his rocket to the top on the main roster to get that title shot, but that's a whole other can of worms). Finn made it known upon his return that he wanted to face Cole and get that title shot. This was a point punctuated by Finn effectively turning heel almost immediately by assaulting a returning Ciampa as well as Gargano, and due to an accidental (non-kayfabe) injuring Johnny with a 1916 on the steel railing at Full Sail, Gargano was out indefinitely, causing him to miss the upcoming Wargames.
But when he came back, he was clearly (pardon the pun) wrestling with his dark side again. He distracted Balor during a title match against Cole causing Balor to lose and thus Balor and Gargano would face each other at Takeover Portland.
Takeover Portland was the beginning of an all new saga for Gargano, as he came out to the ring in Carnage-inspired gear, which was another clear indicator that Gargano wasn't a true babyface anymore but still fought as a babyface in his match against the highly aggressive Balor and Balor claimed the win. But it was at the end of the show where, after a brief re-formation of DIY, Johnny would once again turn heel and attack Ciampa during his match Adam Cole for the NXT title.
This was also a new saga for NXT, pro wrestling, and the world, as Takeover Portland would be, to date, the last road Takeover thanks to the global shitstorm that is COVID-19.
But even in the midst of a shitstorm, Gargano found opportunity, even if it was far from ideal.
Part Two is coming. Stay tuned.
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