Officially leaving the NXT brand following a loss to Tony D’Angelo at NXT Stand And Deliver, Tommaso Ciampa – competing simply as Ciampa for a while – joined the main WWE roster following WrestleMania 38. The two-time NXT Champion was aligned with The Miz for the majority of this period.
He hasn’t wrestled a televised bout since the August 22 Monday Night Raw, as he and ‘The A Lister’ bested then-WWE United States Champion Bobby Lashley and AJ Styles via disqualification. This came after Dexter Lumis laid his hands on The Miz at ringside.
Ciampa will remain absent from WWE until 2023, having undergone surgery on a torn labrum. PWInsider, in asking around backstage, heard back that the belief is that he’ll miss the remainder of 2022 at the very least. An exact timetable for his return is unknown.
Tommaso Ciampa Wasn’t Originally Interested In A Main Roster Run
Having been a stalwart for the NXT brand and seeing how other NXT call-ups sometimes get mistreated on the main WWE roster, Tommaso Ciampa has been open in the past with regards to his own progression to the core roster. He’d outright stated that he wanted to retire in NXT before changing his mind.
Over SummerSlam weekend, which saw Ciampa corner The Miz for his acclaimed singles match vs. Logan Paul, Tommaso Ciampa explained to Inside The Ropes’ own Kenny McIntosh why now was the right time for him to move on from NXT:
“It’s all timing. I think for me, one, I really wanted to build the NXT brand and turn it into something that was equivalent to Raw and SmackDown. I wanted that bad, a lot of us wanted that bad, and I think we were headed that way, and then the pandemic happened. A lot of stuff’s changed. It was very much clear that NXT was backtracking to developmental for a lot of good reasons, I understand them. On top of that, I had my daughter, I had my neck surgery, I had about three years at home with her and to recuperate.
I feel amazing right now. I think prior to neck surgery, I didn’t think I could handle the schedule and the load. Now that I’m a couple years removed, I feel the way I do, it’s kind of rejuvenated…I don’t feel like I have a timeline on me anymore. I thought, ‘Oh, you got three years left’, [now] I kind of feel like I got ten or twenty years left. A lot of changes, there’s a lot of stuff factored into it.”
SummerSlam ultimately saw The Miz lose to Logan Paul.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit the original video and link back to this article with a H/T to Inside The Ropes.