10 Ways WWE Rebuilt NXT In 2017
2. The Greatest Story Ever Told?
Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano were little more than a makeshift unit when they debuted together on NXT in a Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic 2015 first round clash, but within two years the eventually-christened #DIY had improved, inspired and imploded. It was a uniquely transparent arc audiences were included on throughout, but every peak and valley came still came served with a side of surprise.
As a doubles act, their pair came into their own midway through 2016 as the landscape-shifting rivalry between American Alpha and The Revival reached its apex. Victory over Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder just before they became NXT's first ever two-time Tag Team Champions at Jordan and Gable's expense earned them a title shot at TakeOver: Brooklyn 2. They'd lose a breathless encounter, but their seated unity that night matched the same tortured embrace they'd share after fighting each other in the 2016 Cruiserweight Classic. Then, Gargano was the better man, but a targeted assault on his knee had cost them the belts in Brooklyn. On both occasions, Ciampa's dejection simmered but didn't boil over.
It virtually disappeared at the climax of TakeOver: Toronto's last chance title shot and the 2016 WWE/NXT match of the year. Dethroning Dash and Dawson in gloriously dramatic fashion, there was little need for further concern until the pair lost the belts to The Authors Of Pain at January's San Antonio supershow, and subsequent rematches in both Chicago and as part of 2017's finest contest in an Orlando triple threat with the fearsome titleholders and The Revival.
The once-tempered fire in Ciampa's eyes engulfed him as set their union ablaze. He snapped on the heartbreakingly sympathetic Gargano in grisly fashion following their Chi-town defeat. Injury has since prevented further conflict, but the distress simply won't dissipate. Tommaso symbolically sat alongside his decimated former partner during the Chicago sh*t-kicking, whilst Gargano awkwardly shuffled away from a #DIY t-shirt tossed at him by Zelina Vega in August. Costing him defeat that night as a reminder of all he'd suffered and what he'd lost, the cursed apparel had had the team's final resting place adorned on it all along. 'Do It Yourself - Nobody Will Do It For You'.
Like the Steve Austin/Bret Hart rivalry it mirrors in transcendence, it has been one unapologetic stunner after another.