10 Wrestlers You Didn't Know Were In WWE's Ruthless Aggression Era

There's getting the chance to rub shoulders with a few well-known mid-carders during your first-ever WWE showing. And then there's going one-on-one with The Undertaker (!) on a July 2005 edition of SmackDown.

That's precisely the surreal position another future NXT Champion found themselves in all those years ago, with Tommaso Ciampa being forced to act as Muhammad Hussain's lawyer during his controversial rivalry with The Phenom.

Sure enough, after Ciampa - as Thomas Whitney, ESQ - read out a statement from his client in the middle of the blue show's ring, 'Taker proceeded to chokeslam and tombstone the eventual Blackheart straight to hell to the sound of many a cheer.

This wouldn't actually be Ciampa's only Ruthless outing, though. As Demarso Whitney, the then-beardless face was utterly battered by Jamie Noble in a December edition of Velocity before teaming with Kofi Kingston in a dark match during an August 2006 edition of Heat.

A developmental deal would eventually follow in 2007, but Tommaso would part ways with the company before the end of the year, paving the way for a successful run on the indies that would ultimately take him back to his former employer almost a decade later.