7 Amazing Wrestlers WWE Had No Plan For

6. #DIY

Time's not been the kindest to the 2018 payoff matches between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa.

Back then, the pair seemed easily on course to redefine what it meant to have a classic in WWE, but it was revealing how quickly some of those seemingly iconic clashes became clichéd self-parodies. The melodrama and cinematic flourishes worked to incredible effect once or twice, but the slow, deliberate facials that replaced rage during the heat of the battles rapidly felt faker than originally intended, The rap on NXT in general was always that the wrestlers were basically trained to find the hard camera rather than wrestle. In the case of two indie darlings Gargano and Ciampa, it was as if one skill risked replacing the other.

Not that they had to worry about that upon an out-of-nowhere main roster call-up in 2019. Brought to the main roster during WrestleMania season (as if to highlight how far gone the creative process really was by then), Vince McMahon stuck them both against The Revival on Raw, then The Bar on SmackDown then sent them back where they came from having expedited the 'Pyscho Killer's lingering neck problems before he could put Gargano over in the latest culmination of their rivalry. It killed the heat between the two as well as the planned main event of the upcoming TakeOver: New York, and - recent surprise 2026 rebirth for Gargano notwithstanding - neither ever realised anything close to their potential on the main roster again.