7 Ups And 3 Downs From NXT Stand And Deliver 2023

4. Johnny Wrestling Is Back

Ever since Johnny Gargano returned to WWE and showed up on Raw, longtime fans have said that all they needed to do was let him wrestle and win over fans.

Here we are more than seven months later, and that clearly hasn’t happened. Gargano was relegated to being a body in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on SmackDown, which was a complete waste of his time, considering what he was doing Saturday afternoon.

Johnny Wrestling faced off against Grayson Waller in the conclusion to their segmented 16-month feud, with Gargano defeating the Aussie in an unsanctioned match. The two men battered the hell out of each other, but for fans familiar with Gargano in these matches, it looked like the old Johnny Wrestling was back and wouldn’t be deterred.

One can only hope that this leads to a reset for Gargano on the main roster, and not him returning to NXT fulltime, which would be an admission that WWE failed him and couldn’t book Johnny properly. Still, it was fun to see Gargano back at it, destroying Waller in a glorious plunder brawl.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.