Johnny Gargano Reveals EXACTLY Why He Left WWE

Johnny Gargano has spoken at length on the reasons behind his late-2021 WWE departure for the first time, doing so as Renee Paquette's guest on The Sessions.

The 34-year-old, who left the market leaders following his contract's expiration in December, said that he had effectively done everything he wanted to do in NXT, adding that turning WWE's last contract offer down was "scary" while he and wife Candice LeRae were expecting their first child (h/t Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer):-

"I felt like I was in a good place. I had felt this way for a while to where I felt like I accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish in NXT. It is kind of a scary thing to have a new baby on the way and decide I'm going to turn down this new contract that's a good contract, a safe contract that you're going to get money every single week coming in, to kind of go off and do your own thing."

Gargano and LeRae welcomed daughter Quill into the world on 17 February 2022. Candice is still contracted to WWE, though her contract is believed to expire sometime this spring.

Johnny has previously cited Quill as one of the reasons behind him taking time away from professional wrestling, stating the understandable want to be a family man following his first child's birth.

Continuing, Gargano said that the treatment he received on the way out of NXT was so good that those around him figured he had re-signed:-

"I was very lucky to be given that chance. It's so funny because so many people thought that I had re-signed, obviously, because they were like "no one gets this treatment. I went and I sat down with one of the writers but all the words that came out were my own. I wrote my own thing. I wanted to thank people, I wanted to do things like that. I feel like I just have such a good relationship, a good rapport with everyone in NXT and everyone in WWE, in general."

But despite all this, the former NXT Champion decided he was going to leave the black and gold brand a year in advance:-

"I kind of made my mind up a year in advance that this would be my last. I wasn't leaving to go to any particular place. I kind of just felt like I needed to go because I felt like if you watch a TV show or if you watch anything in general, if you see the same character - obviously, I changed character, I turned heel, I did funny stuff, I did things like that here and there - but if you see the same person on TV for five years, six years, it gets stale. I believe that being off TV and being away makes people miss you and I think people need to have a chance to miss you."

Though not bound to any kind of non-compete clause in the wake of his WWE departure, Gargano is yet to re-emerge in professional wrestling.