Johnny Gargano has been going through it on SmackDown, essentially being a plank for several weeks since Tommaso Ciampa left the company to join AEW. This week, he finally got up and had a big character change.
This week on SmackDown, the Motor City Machine Guns were backstage, and in an interaction with Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae, they would have tensions that led to them walking away (due to their early elimination in the tag team turmoil match). Candice LeRae told her husband that they can’t be doing this forever and that he needed to get up at some point. At long last, he decided to get up and do something about it, leading to him going to the ring with his wife and cutting a passionate promo.
Thanks for the submission!
In that promo, he said that he wanted to be Johnny Wrestling again, and he didn’t want to pretend like he wasn’t one of the best wrestlers in the world. He threw out a challenge to anybody who came his way, and unfortunately for him, his character change arc was quickly shut down by Oba Femi.
The Ruler marched to the ring and would unsurprisingly destroy him in a very short period, putting Gargano back into his usual plank position. It remains unclear whether this means that he has reverted to the plank state or whether this is merely another stepping stone moment for Johnny Gargano.
Either way, few will disagree that he is one of the best wrestlers in the world. He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest stars to grace NXT, and his run in the brand was nothing short of legendary.
Of course, we know that success in NXT is far from a guarantee for success on the WWE main roster. Still, it will be interesting to see what lies ahead for Gargano.
Edited by Rohit Nath
