Post by Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story on Jul 31, 2023 11:57:15 GMT -5
As an aside, poor Johnny. Yeesh.
So what happened here?
It's all about timing.
People used to go "man, he should have just stayed in NXT and out of Vince's way" when it came to main roster call ups, but Johnny Gargano is what happens when you're stuck in NXT for too long. The guy likely hit his creative peak in NXT with the Ciampa stuff and had a successful heel run, but that work was never seen by the bulk of WWE's audience. The same thing happened to Adam Cole, and I'd argue he's only now starting to hit a new gear creatively outside of WWE.
The benefit of being called up from NXT was that you were able to ride some buzz for the first few months while you got your sea legs under you. Grayson Waller's enjoying that buzz right now. Gargano came in, lukewarm at best, after almost a year off during a time when there were a lot of surprise returns across wrestling. The angle with Lumis and Miz didn't do him any favors as Lumis is arguably the biggest failure of all the NXT returns.
When they've just let him go out and do his thing - EC and the brief tag run with KO come to mind - he's started to pick up steam, but injuries or other creative circumstances killed his momentum pretty quickly.
If the plan is to reunite him with Ciampa, they need to do that sooner vs. later for Gargano's sake. I know people don't believe there's a difference between main roster WWE crowds and NXT crowds, but I went to NXT shows at Barclays at the height of Gargano's popularity. He was treated like a superhero. I've been at RAW shows at Barclays where crowds have been just about dead for him. The same goes for Candice. It's real.