10 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE NXT TakeOver
3. But The Fall Is Even Worse...
In February 2020, less than a year after an injury to Tommaso Ciampa put an enforced but welcome end to the #DIY feud, Johnny Gargano turned heel to reboot hostilities between them. They were to fight at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver over WrestleMania 36 weekend, in a retooling that drew quiet resentment from NXT lifers pining for something new.
Truthfully, their genuinely remarkable TakeOver: New Orleans war in the Spring of 2018 war had already felt further in the rearview mirror by the time they were fighting and reuniting later that year. Ciampa becoming NXT Champion thanks to accidental interference from Gargano was a great subversion of everybody's expectations, and it was sort of impossible to criticise the technical brilliance work, but almost every other match they had after the original was a little on the indulgent and overly-theatrical side.
It would be good when they were finally allowed to part ways, said nobody internally.
The aforementioned Gargano swerve turn brought about a rancid "One Final Beat" during the second week of 2020's TakeOver: Stand & Deliver payoff that came with a baked-in promise that they'd never wrestle again. They were back at it in the summer. Both encounters took place in empty buildings, and the actTING and am-dram facial expressions generated memes rather than Moments (TM).
Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa were too great individually and together to have their rivalry and its staples become such a tired collection of clichés. But the (black-and-)golden boys suddenly felt anything but valuable to the brand, and unfortunately they weren't the only ones...