WWE News: Tommaso Ciampa Explains Possible Reason Behind His Brief Main Roster Call-Up
Although Tommaso Ciampa appears to have re-established himself as a key member of the NXT roster as the black-and-gold brand continues drifting further from its developmental origins, he was, for a very brief period of time, part of WWE’s main roster earlier this year. Given how little fanfare there was ahead of the quick call-up, Ciampa recently commented on the temporary main roster promotion, explaining the possible decision behind the move.
As explained by WrestlingNews.co, Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, Ricochet, and Aleister Black were all called up in February, with the former two notably teaming up despite being onscreen rivals on NXT at the time. While Ricochet and Black stuck it out on the main roster, Ciampa suffered a neck injury that required him to take several months off, and Gargano was brought back to NXT. And with the “Blackheart” now back on the black-and-gold brand as he tries to regain the NXT Championship he relinquished due to his injury, he recently appeared on the State of Combat podcast to discuss why he and his colleagues were surprisingly called up to the main roster.
“As far as Ricochet, Aleister (Black), myself and Johnny Gargano being on the main roster, there wasn’t a lot of explanation, to be honest with you,” Ciampa said, as quoted by WrestlingNews.co.
“Sometimes, there are spots that need to be filled and you just have to be at the right spot at the right time or the wrong spot and the wrong time.”
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Considering how several main-roster superstars were injured in the lead-up to WrestleMania 35, Ciampa added that WWE felt it was a “good opportunity” for him and other top NXT stars to get some much-needed exposure and help draw attention toward the company ahead of its biggest pay-per-view of the year.
After further explaining that he believes WWE needed some fresh new talents onscreen in the lead-up to WrestleMania 35, Ciampa admitted that there was some “backlash” due to how the company seemingly ignored his NXT storyline with Gargano and had both men reunite as a tag team. While he acknowledged that their onscreen feud was gaining a lot of traction on NXT, he added that he felt it was more important for him to do what WWE’s creative team wanted him to do.
“Maybe it would have played out a certain way, I think it would have. I kind of trust the process here, but yeah, I don’t ask a lot of questions,” Ciampa continued. “I just go out and do my job and at that time my job was to show up and perform on Raw and perform on SmackDown and do my job.”
