WWE NXT: Evaluating Tommaso Ciampa’s Reign After TakeOver Phoenix

via wwe.com

An Afterthought in a Bigger Picture

Between September and October, the WWE NXT Champion was without a challenger to feud with. NXT was dominated by the whodunit mystery rocking the Performance Center speculating who attacked and injured Aleister Black in the PC parking lot. From the start, Ciampa was always viewed as a prime suspect in the crime. While it was compelling to check in every week to see where the NXT Champion fit in this grand plot, he wasn’t even one of the main chess pieces in this scenario.

A far bigger player in this angle from beginning to end was Nikki Cross. Many people tuned in to NXT TV to see when and if she would reveal her big secret regarding Black’s attacker. Meanwhile, Ciampa as a character lacked trajectory. Most weeks saw the self-proclaimed “Greatest Sports Entertainer of All Time” cut stand alone promos while others saw a title feud teased between him and Velveteen Dream (more on the feud itself later). In between all of this, he had a two-episode mini-feud and match with Otis Dozovic of Heavy Machinery fame.

Looking back on Tommaso Ciampa’s NXT Championship reign so far, its biggest sore spot would have to be seeing where he sat on the totem pole for the Black angle. He lacked a proper direction and was essentially cast to the side in favor of the bigger picture involving Black.

It was months prior to this that Ciampa’s storyline with Gargano overshadowed Aleister Black’s NXT Title reign. In an ironic twist of fate, in its halfway point, Tommaso Ciampa’s NXT Championship reign was being overshadowed by a storyline starring Aleister Black.