WWE NXT: Tommaso Ciampa was at his best being the absolute worst

Prior to his injury, former WWE NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa enjoyed the best year of his career, becoming one of the most reviled heels in the business.

With one treacherous hurl of #DIY tag team partner Johnny Gargano into the LED board during the closing moments of WWE NXT TakeOver: Chicago, Tommaso Ciampa became the most despised man in pro wrestling.

Many fans thought that Ciampa could thrive as an antagonistic figure — he had a couple of solid heel runs in Ring of Honor and between he and Gargano, Ciampa seemed like the more natural villain — but as we saw throughout 2018, Ciampa exceeded those expectations to reach the pinnacle of WWE’s developmental brand: NXT.

One could argue that in this era of wrestling, it’s harder than ever for a heel to generate consistent heat. Some may attribute that to the fact that most fans are fairly aware of wrestling’s inner workings and understand what they’re watching is a performance. Of course, this has probably been true since the 19th century, so that probably isn’t the reason. Plus, being cognizant of the staged nature of an entertainment product doesn’t preclude people from suspending their disbelief whenever they watch movies or other TV shows.

The real issue lies in how wrestling promotions present heels. Companies like ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling are guilty of this, but WWE stands out as the most visible culprit.

Almost 22 years after Vince McMahon told viewers his company wouldn’t insult his audience’s intelligence with the “same old simplistic theory of ‘good guys vs. bad guys'”, he and his creative team have gradually made their heels’ jobs harder by crafting feckless — and at times dumb — babyface characters, turning the wrong people heel, giving heels far-too-logical explanations for their actions, and instructing the announcers to shrug off despicable heel acts.

These small, avoidable changes have contributed to either indifference or the ironic approval from the fans for anyone who identifies as a rule breaker. You could probably count the number of heels who get heat — not go-away heat, real “I will pay to see a babyface beat them” heat — on one hand without needing to use all of your fingers.

Ciampa was one of those select few. He never tried to get a catchy slogan over nor did he try to sell a bunch of t-shirts bearing his likeness. He wasn’t looking to deliver some witty jab to pop the crowd. Ciampa had one motivation: make Johnny Gargano’s life as miserable as possible and, by proxy, the fans who adored him.

It took a while — Ciampa missed several months rehabbing an ACL injury — but Ciampa lived up to his heinous promise; first when he swung a crutch into Gargano’s back like a Louisville Slugger after Gargano lost his NXT Championship match against Andrade “Cien” Almas (now shortened to Andrade because McMahon hates full names) and again during the closing moments of Gargano’s rematch with Almas on the Feb. 21 episode of NXT, costing Gargano the NXT Title and Gargano’s “career”.

For the fans, Ciampa’s traitorous far exceeded your run-of-the-mill heel attack. This wasn’t the Undisputed Era ganging up on some random Performance Center goober or Lars Sullivan flinging around a helpless jobber just because he could.

This was a man who ripped out the collectively ripped out and stepped on not only Gargano’s heart, but the hearts of every person who ever proclaimed themselves a #DIY fan. A man who not only broke up a beloved team who seemed bound by more than just common goals, but also caused so much suffering to arguably the mose affable member of the NXT roster at the time, but a man who at one time would’ve — and did — sacrificed his body for that team and his friend, robbing him of his dreams of becoming a singles champion and also snatching away the very thing that defined him (I mean, he is nicknamed “Johnny Wrestling” for a reason).

To say that these actions garnered Ciampa heat would be like saying Stephen Curry is “kinda good” at making 3-point baskets. The man entered arenas for months with the boisterous boos from the audience serving as his symphony. For weeks, the man couldn’t even hold the microphone to his face without hearing the fan’s cacophonous disapproval.

For Ciampa, though, the jeers were music to his ears, as they were the soundtrack to what would become his magnum opus after over a decade of plying his craft for ROH and various other promotions around the world.

This near-universal animus for Ciampa fueled arguably the greatest feud in NXT history with Gargano — a rivalry that produced three instant classics at three consecutive TakeOver’s — and eventually, the NXT Championship.

Unfortunately, even venomous souls like Ciampa eventually struggle to maintain their nuclear heat forever, especially when you receive cool entrance music as Ciampa did or when your archnemesis goes down their own dark path as Gargano did. It also doesn’t help when you start teasing the reformation of the very team you broke up with your selfishness, which Ciampa nearly accomplished.

While Ciampa was eventually exposed as the demonic puppet master he truly was on the March 13 NXT, but unfortunately, Ciampa’s neck injury will keep us from truly knowing if the fans could gin up the same level of disgust for the former NXT Champion.

The video package the WWE NXT production team put together chronicling Ciampa’s surgery more or less signified the end of Ciampa’s heel run for a while, even when he returns to action. He’ll probably excel in that role too, but it won’t be the same because as he showed us in 2018 and early 2019, Ciampa is the best version of himself by embracing the worst parts of his personality.