Ranking All 29 WWE Returns And Debuts In 2022

22. Johnny Gargano

Cody Rhodes
WWE.com

If you had said that Johnny Gargano would return after eight months to a Triple H-led WWE, you would bet he’d be in the top 10 on this list and possibly a secondary champion by now.

Instead, Gargano’s August return has been one of the most glaring failures of the new regime, with the former NXT triple crown champion going 50/50, losing to the likes of Baron Corbin, Omos and Miz.

Worse, he’s been reduced to playing goofy sidekick and mouthpiece to the silent, slow-moving charisma vacuum that is Dexter Lumis. No situation better exemplified his lowly status than the 19 December Raw, where Miz knocked Gargano over the barricade with a ladder and Johnny Wrestling wasn’t seen again for five minutes, presumably dead.

At this point, it’s safe to call Gargano’s return a colossal failure, but leaving the door open to Johnny getting himself over if the opportunity presents itself in 2023.

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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 fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.