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WWE NXT TakeOver: Phoenix highlighted a brand new chapter in not only the ever evolving Johnny Gargano character, but also in his love-hate relationship with DIY mate, Tommaso Ciampa.
Considering everything we’ve seen that led to Johnny Gargano’s slip into the darkness, we’re going examine exactly what convinced Johnny Wrestling to become the nefarious Johnny Badass in NXT.
It goes without saying that the man standing before us today as WWE NXT North American Champion is far from the same Johnny Wrestling that he was a year ago. Gargano has not been Johnny Wrestling for a very long time. It would be easy to blame his wars with Tommaso Ciampa and the rollercoaster of emotion that he suffered during that feud as the main reason for such a drastic change, but we think it is much, much deeper than that.
A change like this does not just happen over night. It may start off with a single moment that occurs in one night, sure, but one does not go from being an overly chipper white meat babyface to a much more unstable, reckless blowhard with a chip on his shoulder.
If we had to boil it all down to a single moment where Johnny Gargano’s character first started to fall into a downward spiral, we can pinpoint it all to the events of NXT TakeOver: Chicago.
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A Couple Schmucks Turned Champions
Let’s wind the clocks back to 2015 for a second. Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa are just two scrawny necked kids from the indies who WWE decide to sign on a whim to their NXT brand. Since WWE needed more tag teams onboard for their Dusty Rhodes Classic Tournament, Ciampa and Gargano are paired together. Thus, DIY is born.
Prior to their signing, Gargano and Ciampa never tagged together. They wrestled one-on-one in a few bingo halls across the globe, but they never competed on the same lines until stepping onto the yellow brand. By definition, they were a thrown together tag team. Yet, somehow, what blossomed was something so much more.
Both Gargano and Ciampa made the best out of the hands they were dealt with and formed a genuine relationship out of it that would resonate outside of the ring as much as it did inside of it. More than a relationship actually. What would quickly manifest in the coming months was a friendship.
We watched this bond bloom through the guise of social media. We saw two pencil necked goofballs grin from ear to ear as they goofed around on Twitter, like when they #GLORIOUSBOMBED Bobby Roode.
Stuff like this made us see the genuine friendship forming between Ciampa and Gargano. One can argue that Gargano started to bond and look up to Ciampa as if they were brothers. For crying out loud, Gargano appointed Ciampa as his best man for his wedding to Candice LeRae. If that’s not brotherly love, I don’t know what is. Amazingly, a couple of indie schmucks who didn’t know each other from a rock and a hard place found a genuine love between each other.
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Crackling Crackles of a Cracking Relationship (Say That Five Times Fast)
Speaking of a rock in a hard place, despite their bond seeming solid as a rock, there were some bumpy cracks in their relationship along the way. The first coming in the first ever Cruiserweight Classic. Both men competed in the First Round, but only one man advanced to the Second Round. Gargano defeated Ciampa in a hard fought match, but Ciampa seemed salty about the altercation.
Gargano offered his DIY mate a handshake, but Ciampa refused and opted to walk away. This was the first major test of their friendship and for a moment, it looked like Ciampa was ready to throw it away right then and there. However, after some contemplation, Ciampa reconsidered and gave Gargano a hug. Their brotherly bond was tight again. For now.
Another crack in the relationship would come from their first crack at the NXT Tag Team Championships against The Revival at TakeOver Brooklyn II. DIY would fail to win the titles that night and once again, Ciampa looked despondent. He still raised his partner’s hand to a standing ovation after the match and even helped him out of the ring, but he had a different look in his eyes compared to Johnny Wrestling’s. While Johnny was more physically and mentally hurt, Ciampa looked like he was dejected; like he was just tired of losing.
Thankfully, all it took was the next TakeOver event – Toronto – where over a year of ups and downs failing to get the job done would pay off for the duo when DIY finally captured the NXT Tag Team Titles from The Revival at NXT TakeOver: Toronto. Their journey had finally come full circle after over a year of chasing victories and championships. Sadly, this championship reign would prove to be short lived as they would lose the titles to Authors of Pain at the next TakeOver two months later.
DIY then lost a rematch – a Triple Threat Elimination Tag Team match that included The Revival – at TakeOver: New Orleans where they were the first men eliminated from the match. Some months later, DIY would get one last shot at challenging AOP for the NXT Tag Team Championships in a Ladder Match at NXT TakeOver: Chicago.
Remember that 70’s song from Paper Lace called “The Night Chicago Died?” Well, all it took was a night in Chicago to kill DIY. NXT TakeOver: Chicago was the night that DIY died. Na-na-na, na-na-na.
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A “Moment” Stolen
DIY’s quest to regain their titles from AOP would take them to a Ladder Match against AOP six months after losing the titles. The road to the championship match was a rocky one to say the least. Mere days before TakeOver Chicago, Tommaso Ciampa would injure his ankle and his TakeOver status was up in the air.
Within moments of this news, fans were anxious to post about their “dream partners” for who Gargano should use to replace Ciampa for the Ladder Match if he can’t compete. Ciampa would later cite the fans’s eagerness to get him out of the picture as a reason to why he singlehandedly killed DIY, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. More on that later.
Tommaso Ciampa would wind up arriving to TakeOver but, again, luck wasn’t on his side when he tore his ACL five minutes into the match. Still, it was through sheer will and determination – as well as support from his partner – that helped Ciampa get through the remainder of the match. Of course, sheer will and determination alone does not get the job done in high stakes situations.
As a unit, Gargano and Ciampa withstood an onslaught of punishment from AOP and even delivered some punishment of their own with a few tricks. What is particularly worth mentioning is that near the closing moments of the match, Gargano went as far as to push his best friend out of the way of a stray ladder to the face and took the bullet himself. Even when their chances were most dire and they were on the verge of losing, Gargano still found it more important to save his friend than to make a grab for a championship. Gargano would regret saving Ciampa just minutes later.
After losing yet another TakeOver match and being drowned in the cheers and applause of a crowd on their feet beside his supposed best friend, it was then that something snapped in The Psycho Killer’s mind that convinced him to attack Gargano after the match and throw away years of friendship.
“This is MY moment,” Ciampa echoed before slamming Gagrano head first into the mini-tron.
It looked like we were heading down the road towards a Gargano vs Ciampa match shortly following the breakup. Alas, it was not to be yet. At least not yet. During the Ladder Match, The Sicilian Sociopath would legitimately rupture the ACL in his right knee and needed surgery ASAP.
While this injury would put a momentary halt to the DIY dissimilation, The Sicilian Psychopath would make sure to cut a promo explaining his actions on the May 31, 2017 episode of NXT TV. On his way out the door, Ciampa declared that “…if I was going to go away for a long, long time, then Johnny Wrestling was gonna go away for a long, long time.”
And so he did. In a metaphorical sense, rather.
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A Downward Spiral
Forced to put his vengeance on hold without ever receiving closure from his breakup, Johnny Gargano fell into something of a slump when it came to big time matches. Since he could never get the image of his best friend turning his back on him out of his mind, it distracted him in matches. A prime example was at TakeOver Brooklyn III, where Gargano faced Andrade “Cien” Almas.
When Gargano was seconds away from securing a win, all it took was Zelina Vega tossing a DIY shirt in the ring to leave Johnny TakeOver taken over with grief. He was distracted – lost in his own thoughts – long enough for Andrade to take advantage and win the match himself. A couple months later, right before TakeOver War Games would go on the air, Gargano would challenge Pete Dunne for his United Kingdom Championship. Once again, he lost.
Ever since Tommaso Ciampa sent him head first into a mini-tron and left town, Johnny Gargano would develop an unlucky losing streak whenever the lights were on bright on a big stage.
Something worth noting is that losing in big stakes matches wasn’t anything new for Gargano in a post-DIY world. When Ciampa was by his side, they were both known even then for having the best matches on TakeOver without ever winning. Apart from a miraculous Toronto victory, TakeOver was never an event where DIY was there to shine.
The only difference now is that Gargano didn’t have Ciampa by his side. In fact, Ciampa was nowhere in sight and Gargano had no one by his side to replace him. Gargano was alone and was forced to soak in his failure by his lonesome without a friend to comfort him. Losing with someone by your side is earth shattering enough, but being lonely and a loser is a whole nother pain in itself.
Gargano struggled to bounce back in his own merits, but his luck would finally turn around when he would close out the final NXT television episode of 2017 by winning a #1 Contender’s Match for the NXT Championship. He was on course for a stellar 2018 and things were finally starting to look up for Johnny Boy. Little did he know that things were only starting to get worse. Much, much worse.
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The Ghost of TakeOver’s Past Returns
Although he would put in a 5-star valiant effort, Johnny Gargano would fail to win the NXT Championship at TakeOver: Philadelphia. As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, a ghost from Gargano’s past emerged from the shadows to pour some salt on his wounds. After spending seven months on the shelf, a virtually unrecognizable Tommaso Ciampa returned by cracking a crutch over Gargano’s back.
Much like he did at NXT TakeOver: Chicago, Ciampa took a moment – a standing ovation – catered towards Gargano and made it his own. From that moment forward, the Blackheart of NXT would serve as a leach – a Devil, if you will – sucking on Gargano’s back until he was certain that the resident Heart of NXT was drained dry. Ciampa would strike again the following week. This time, in a Title vs Career rematch on the Feb. 2 episode of NXT TV between Almas and Gargano.
As a result of Ciampa’s interference, Gargano would be forced out of NXT and wrestling altogether. If you take the wrestling out of Johnny Wrestling, then what’s left? Nothing. That is, nothing but a broken shell of a man with a newfound bloodthirst for vengeance. The next time we would see Gargano, he failed to have the same tint in his eye that was prevalent of his jovial character. It was replaced by a blank expression with black, dead eyes.
Gargano could not just live and let die. He couldn’t put his wrestling career and his feud with Tommaso Ciampa to rest. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he got his job back and he broke Ciampa’s neck; not necessarily in that order.
After Ciampa made his life a living hell, Gargano was hellbent on returning the favor. In the coming weeks, we would see Gargano try to ambush Ciampa at Full Sail University from the crowd, in the parking lot of the Performance Center, at Ciampa’s physical therapy and even at his home. In his two-month stint of unemployment, Gargano tapped into a darker, more deranged and obsessive part of himself that we would come to see by time the year was over.
That beast within Gargano would momentarily settle down once he had won his job back at NXT TakeOver: New Orleans in a match against Tommaso Ciampa. Not only did he get himself reinstated back into NXT, he finally found closure in defeating Ciampa after the image of his betrayal had racked his brain for several months.
Unfortunately for Gargano, Ciampa would not experience that same closure.
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Warped Personalities Get Personal
Despite losing their New Orleans match, The Devil on Gargano’s back continued to neg on it and refused to unlatch itself anytime soon. Weeks after the fact, Ciampa would prevent Gargano from challenging Aleister Black in their booked NXT Championship main event on Apr. 25.
Gargano would not return to NXT television until the May 23 episode while wearing a neck brace. Interesting enough, he came down the ring to discuss his “future” as a competitor. However, in feeling the rush of an electric crowd cheering him on and chanting “Yes!” when he asked if another career threatening encounter with Tommaso Ciampa was worth it, he tore off his neck brace and called Ciampa out. Seconds later, Gargano instantly regretted that decision once Ciampa knocked Gargano off the apron and onto his wife, Candice LeRae, and knocking her unconscious.
This was the point of no return for Johnny Gargano. Whatever was left of the happy-go-lucky Johnny Gargano that first walked into NXT in 2015 was gone. That same beast that had calmed down in the aftermath of New Orleans was reawkaned. He was devastated from this moment enough that he demanded a Street Fight with Ciampa at TakeOver: Chicago II. Two days later, the match was set.
This, obviously, did not sit well with Candice LeRae. In fact, Gargano’s entire saga with Ciampa seems to have left a toll on Gargano’s wife and his marriage overall. She saw the darkness that this feud was pulling out of her husband and how The Psycho Killer physically and mentally drained Gargano for the past year. She begged her husband to reconsider dancing with The Devil time and time again, but Gargano has always been so blinded by vengeance that he refused to stay away.
More than that, it seems Gargano is far too obsessed with his ex-tag team partner to ever willingly walk away from him.
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Anger Leads to Hate & Hate Leads to Johnny’s Suffering
Johnny Gargano would showcase this newly reawakened beast within him in the closing moments of his Street Fight with Ciampa. After Ciampa pulled off Gargano’s wedding band, spitting on it and chucking it across the arena, Gargano slammed Ciampa through the table beneath them in a moment of desperation; a moment that echoed Ciampa’s own “moment” from TakeOver: Chicago a whole year prior.
As Gargano watched his ex-partner carried out on a stretcher with a dazed look in his eye – again, another mirror image from last year – Gargano’s eyes went black upon realizing his wedding band was missing. In a moment of pure unapologetic rage, Gargano proceeded to beat the unholy hell out of Ciampa, as well as anybody who got in his way. Without an end to his chaos in sight, Gargano left himself wide open for a draping middle rope DDT that afforded Ciampa a win.
If that finish was anything to go off of, Gargano was slowly turning into the very thing that he had hated. Or, rather, the very man who he hated. Obsessive, twisted, delusional, psychotic … all new adjectives that can be applied to Johnny Gargano. The next few weeks would see Gargano slip further and further into the darkness.
Weeks after the fact, Gargano would display a much more aggressive wrestling style in a match with EC3, which Gargano would win with an ironic draping middle rope DDT. Fast forward to a few episodes of NXT later when Tommaso Ciampa challenged Aleister Black for his NXT Championship. Gargano’s obsession with Ciampa would get the best of him when he tried to cost Ciampa the match, but he inadvertently cost it for Black. Gargano’s emotions got the better of him yet again, but this time, it put NXT’s top prize in the hands of his worst enemy.
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Johnny Failure
Prior to Gargano’s second TakeOver loss to Ciampa, a mystery unfolded. The Last Man Standing Match was originally a triple threat with Aleister Black in the mix, until an unknown assailant attacked him in the parking lot. We now know that attacker to be Johnny Gargano, but before we get into the semantics of the whole foray, now is a good time to talk about Gargano’s relationship with the NXT crowd.
The same crowd who goaded him into calling out Tommaso Ciampa. The same crowd who made Johnny Gargano into Johnny Wrestling. That same crowd had turned their backs on him when he failed to win Ciampa’s NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV. At one time, Gargano was NXT’s most beloved babyface. Days after his Brooklyn lost, they were calling him Johnny Failure.
Clearly, something was wrong. In the coming weeks, once his true colors were revealed as Black’s attacker, Gargano maintained his love for the fans. In the weeks and months since, he would ignore whatever boos were spewed in his direction and continued to play for the crowd – particularly high fiving children – as if the NXT Universe were not calling him a failure months prior.
The thing about that “Johnny Failure” chant is that it didn’t sour Gargano’s opinion of NXT or the brand’s fans. It didn’t turn him into this devious, jaded villain. He was disappointed and dejected from it all enough to long to be a hero. “I’m the hero,” he exclaimed to Aleister Black during their TakeOver match. He loved the NXT Universe and would do anything to have them back on his side. Anything.
It was at this point that Johnny Gargano was desperate the win the fans back on his side. In his desperation, he realize he couldn’t play by the same rules that he would play as Johnny Wrestling. Nice guys finish last and he had to play the game like a regular bad guy. More specifically, he had to play like NXT’s resident bad guy.
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Johnny Failure Finally Wins
Since being revealed as Black’s attacker and once again losing another TakeOver match, Gargano would kickstart his brand new game plan. Since then, we’ve seen him win matches by nefarious means. Whether it means briefly teasing a DIY reunion to beat Black inside of a steel cage, or dropping Ricochet with a Brainbuster on the exposed concrete floor to win the North American Championship. The “New” Johnny Gargano has completed his transformation into the darkness and in a strange way, he owes it all to Tommaso Ciampa.
In his feud with Ricochet especially, that desperation within Gargano seemed to reach its zenith. Not only was he trying to prove that he could actually win matches rather than just steal the show at TakeOver by winning the North American Championship in Phoenix, but he wanted to prove he could live a career that was dependent from that of Tommaso Ciampa. After all that those two have been through, that wasn’t going to happen.
Fast forward to the TakeOver matches where Gargano realizes that Johnny Wrestling just can’t get the job done. But perhaps, Johnny Badass – a much darker Johnny Gargano akin to Ciampa – can do just that. Pulling a page right out of Ciampa’s book, Gargano removes the floor covering to expose the concrete. He considers a draping DDT on the ground onto Ricochet, but reconsiders. Either because he can’t bring himself to stoop down to Ciampa’s level or because he sees himself turning into the very thing he despises.
Either way, this was our first hint that after all the blindsiding and sneak attacks, there is still a small hint of the old Johnny Gargano hidden inside of him.
Unfortunately, after nearly losing the match following his reconsideration, Gargano goes all out and decides its time to finally get the job done with a Brainbuster on the concrete. This may have been the final nail in the coffin for the old Johnny Gargano. The New Johnny Gargano is here to stay.
“I win,” Gargano uttered before nailing Ricochet with a DDT for the win.
For the first time in a long time, Johnny had his TakeOver Moment.
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Closing Moments
When Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa briefly reunited to double team Aleister Black during the former’s Steel Cage match, Gargano would return the following week that a “moment” in a cage meant nothing and that DIY was not back together. Looking at the moment in retrospect, it was more than just a moment.
In fact, all of the moments that Johnny Gargano shared with Tommaso Ciampa during their storyline were always more than just moments. Even dating back to when Ciampa first slammed Gargano’s head into a mini-tron in order to solidify what he deemed to be “My Moment.”
The Gargano/Ciampa saga has always been a feud comprised a moments orchestrated to signal the fall of a good man. Johnny Gargano was once a good man who in the midst of being in the thick of a war that wasn’t suited for good men, Gargano was ultimately corrupted. He lost his morals, lost his values, but most of all, he lost himself along the way. Now, before our very eyes, Johnny Wrestling has become Johnny Turncoat.
As we saw at the end of NXT TakeOver: Phoenix, Gargano re-joined Ciampa behind enemy lines and it looks like DIY is back together. They closed out the latest TakeOver event standing side by side and grinning from ear to ear as, respectively, the North American Champion and the NXT Champion.
The definitive good guy of NXT has traded his white hat for a black one and it looks like he may be too far gone to ever find his way back to the light.