Ciampa on His Future Now That Triple H Is Running WWE Creative, The NXT Call-Up Process

Paul “Triple H” Levesque officially stepped into his new role as WWE’s Head of Creative on July 25. The announcement sent shockwaves throughout the pro wrestling industry as it meant for the first time in roughly 40 years WWE would be booked by someone other than Vince McMahon. This led to immediate fan speculation (and so many memes) about who would benefit from this new creative direction, with many of the stars Levesque helped build during his time running the NXT brand getting mentioned. One of the names that popped up the most was a former NXT Champion in (Tommaso) Ciampa. 

The former NXT TakeOver main eventer officially arrived on the Raw roster on April 11, but it quickly became clear that McMahon and the creative minds who ran Raw didn’t have a fully developed idea for what his role would be. Within weeks he had turned heel and lost his first name. He won his in-ring debut in early May, then started losing consistently on Raw while scoring a few wins on Main Event. His loose connection to The Miz also solidified during “The A-Lister’s” program with Logan Paul, leading to him being at ringside for their match at SummerSlam. And while he has been getting TV time, Ciampa’s booking under McMahon was a far cry from his heavily-decorated time in NXT. 

So what does his future hold now that Levesque is running the main roster? Ciampa talked about that speculation with ComicBook during SummerSlam media day on Friday. 

“Yeah (I’m excited to work with him) and I was excited for what we were doing too,” Ciampa said. “I never worked with Vince, and the little I got to work with him I was like ‘ah, this guy is a genius. This is interesting, I want to pick his brain.’ I worked with Hunter (and I said), ‘This guy is a genius, I want to pick his brain.’ It’s exciting to be on the inside of what, 20 years from now, we are likely going to look back on and go, ‘Whoa, stuff started to shift there.’ It’s just natural. To me, that’s cool. I don’t know what to expect, all I can do is what I’ve been doing. I can control what I can control. I’ll look good, I’ll be in shape, I can cut a promo if you want me to cut a promo. Aside from that, whatever you want I’ll do it to the best of my ability.”

He also speculated on what the NXT call-up process will look like under the Levesque regime. Often times when a wrestler would get brought up from NXT, they’d be repackaged in some form before joining the main roster and the results were often a mixed bag. It’s part of the reason why of the 20 former NXT Champions (including Ciampa), only 11 are still with the company. 

“It’ll be interesting to see how it goes,” Ciampa said. “Especially developing characters. Just from firsthand experience, even if the character is exactly what it was in NXT, the Raw and the SmackDown audience is different. It’s larger by a whole lot. Even if the character stays the same, that new audience still needs to know who they are. It’s not like (Johnny) Gargano and Ciampa can have a feud and it just continues on Raw because a whole lot of people would be lost. They wouldn’t understand the friendship, they wouldn’t understand the tag team, they wouldn’t understand the turn. I still think regardless of who is in charge of creative, when people debut we need to present them to a new audience.

“We have to present them in baby steps,” he continued. “I think that’s what’s been cool about how I’ve been presented. I know it’s probably a slower burn than people want, but for me, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s like, ‘Hey, come along with me for this story.’ People are going to have the chance to go, ‘I remember when he was just jumping people from under the ring. I remember when he was just with The Miz on the outside for SummerSlam.’ I like that, I like when people can feel like they were part of a success.”

This week’s Monday Night Raw could wind up being the start of a new chapter for Ciampa. WWE has announced he’ll be involved in one of the triple threat matches that could potentially earn him a United States Championship match against Bobby Lashley.