Fantasy Booking Triple H's FIRST WWE WrestleMania

10. Johnny Gargano Vs. Tommaso Ciampa

Brock Lesnar WrestleMania
WWE.com

If this seems very obvious, it's because it is.

It's easy to laugh at the melodramatic parody into which the #DIY saga descended, because it was really funny. At one point during One Final Beat, Johnny Gargano tenderly reached out to Tommaso Ciampa's hand, as if to convey that, maybe, just maybe, they were better off as friends. Ciampa looked at him with an expression that read "Mate what in the absolute f*ck are you doing".

Also Triple H slouched by the turnbuckles before the match started as if he was too cool to stand up straight. Known easygoing slacker, ruthless career politician Triple H.

It's less easy to admire the ambition, detail and continuity of the story because it is deeply unfashionable now, but they deserve a less phenomenally cursed stage on which to get the ending right - and WrestleMania in LA is antithetical to the empty Performance Center. Ciampa is on great form, and rediscovered it well before Triple H took control of the book. Everything he did after forming the team with Timothy Thatcher was under-the-radar great, and Gargano reinvented himself as a (deliberate) comedy character after looking beyond his hands and at the criticism levied against the excesses of the old NXT.

All of which is to state that One Final Beat won't be repeated - and since Triple H reneged on the stip a few months later, he won't be able to help himself and attempt to redeem it either.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and surefire Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!