Johnny Gargano’s journey comes full circle at NXT TakeOver: New York

Johnny Gargano’s NXT Championship victory over Adam Cole at NXT TakeOver: New York was the culmination of a year-long trek to redemption.

The Barclays Center crowd had plenty of reasons to reject the notion of Johnny Gargano winning the NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver: New York.

You could point to several factors that contributed to the supposed dampening of Gargano’s quest to the championship: his shortcomings at previous TakeOvers, his brief heel run, his abrupt pivot to being a clean-cut good guy without truly atoning for his past sins or his new opponent Adam Cole’s “cool heel” status.

Tommaso Ciampa’s neck injury occurring before Gargano could give him his comeuppance didn’t help matters either.

All of that fostered an environment in which more than half of the Brooklyn audience booing Gargano throughout most of his 2-out-of-3 falls match with Cole. Yes, there were plenty of audible “Johnny Wrestling ” chants, but they were often immediately drowned out by the many in attendance who wanted to witness the start of an Adam Cole NXT Title reign. That is, until about the midway point of the final fall.

In what was arguably the best moment of the match, Cole drove Gargano into the Spanish announcer’s table using Ciampa’s Fairy Tale Ending, leading to one of the best near-countout spots you’ll see in a wrestling match.

As the crowd watched Gargano struggle to beat the 10 count, it seemed as though everything that Gargano did and everything he endured prior to that double underhook facebuster didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he attacked Aleister Black in the Full Sail parking lot several months prior. It didn’t matter that he choked again and again and looked to be on the brink of doing so once more.

It seemed like those snapshots didn’t matter in that brief period, but ultimately, meant everything to Gargano’s story. Here was a man who over the past year had his dreams of becoming NXT Champion dashed thanks to the heinous actions of his treacherous former best friend and became so obsessed with seeking revenge against his archnemesis that he ultimately succumbed to the very darkness that he spent months battling, all while deluding himself into thinking he was still the hero of his story.

That fall from grace combined with those previous instances of failure contributed to the three tensest minutes of Gargano and Cole’s over-half-hour classic, as the crowd fully bought into the idea that Gargano — a man who became the worst version of himself in pursuit of besting his hated foe and leaned into those tendencies to win his first championship in WWE — would again fall short of claiming NXT’s ultimate prize, and the presumptive loss coming thanks to Cole’s using Ciampa’s finishing move made it all the more gutwrenching.

But once Gargano slid back into the ring as the ref was set to count him out, he showed that maybe this night would be different from all the other TakeOvers. Maybe it was finally his time. But most importantly, Gargano got us to believe that it was his time.

You know what happened after that; Cole and Gargano traded a smorgasbord of big moves and nearfalls that drove everyone watching into a frenzy and in the midst of that climactic insanity, Gargano exhibited the fighting spirit that came to define the early stages of his singles babyface run.

Nothing Cole threw at Gargano kept him down; not a Canadian Destroyer, a series of superkicks, a second Last Shot, nor a Total Elimination from Cole’s Undisputed Era stablemates Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish. Gargano withstood all of that before taking Cole’s henchmen out and capping off his “Super-Cena” impression by locking Cole into the Garga-No-Escape.

There was no split reaction when Gargano applied the hold and once Cole tapped out, the Barclays Center crowd erupted as though D’Angelo Russell had led another Brooklyn Nets comeback win (I’m kidding, Nets games aren’t that loud).

Sure, the story would’ve been more satisfying if Ciampa were the one tapping instead of Cole and yes, the build to this match felt a little janky with Gargano quickly reverting back to being a white-meat babyface while the creative team handwaved away his past underhanded deeds. I won’t even get into how illogical it was when Ciampa — whose black heart apparently softened and grew three sizes the day he underwent his neck surgery — embraced and congratulated Gargano alongside Candice LeRae following the match.

But whether the NXT writers choose to acknowledge those aspects of Gargano’s story or not, there’s no doubt that they were vital in painting the full portrait of Gargano’s voyage to the NXT Title.

To overcome Ciampa and attain sustained success in NXT, Gargano believed that he needed to embrace the darker portions of his personality to achieve his goals. It worked for a while, but as we’ve gotten used to seeing from Gargano, the success didn’t last. But once Gargano turned the clock back and once again became the man who was near-universally adored by the fans — a man who fought with honor and determination — the end result was a rewarding conclusion to a year-long championship journey.