WWE News: WWE Officially Signs Two Big Names To NXT Exclusive Deals
Over the past few months, WWE has been looking for great new talent and also for talent that has established themselves in other promotions. A number of big names from NJPW, Ring of Honor, and TNA have found a new place to call home in either NXT or WWE, and now there are two more to add to the list. On Saturday, it was revealed that both Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa have signed exclusive deals with NXT.
For a number of months now, both of those talents have been working within NXT and often teaming together as well. They were never signed to exclusive deals though, and both Gargano and Ciampa were still allowed to take independent bookings as they wished.
Their deals were very similar to the one that Samoa Joe had, when he first arrived in NXT. That deal was quickly squashed and made NXT/WWE exclusive though, as the company wanted to keep him off of the TV specials of other wrestling promotions.
Johnny Gargano is 28-years-old and was last in Pro Wrestling Guerilla and Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling before appearing for NXT. He’s a multiple time Heavyweight Champion across numerous organizations and promotions.
As for Tommaso Ciampa, he’s often been seen as a brutal and violent fighter who is very hard in the ring. Ciampa is 30-years-old and has also held numerous titles, including heavyweight championships across multiple promotions.
Just looking back at the big names that have found their way to WWE and NXT over the past year or so, it’s incredibly impressive.
- AJ Styles from NJPW
- Hideo Itami from Pro Wrestling Noah
- Shinsuke Nakamura from NJPW
- Karl Anderson from NJPW – Coming soon
- Doc Gallows from NJPW – Coming soon
- Austin Aries from TNA
- Asuka from Japan
- Finn Balor from NJPW and NWA
- Samoa Joe from ROH, TNA, NOAH
- Kevin Owens from PWG, ROH
The list can keep going on and on as WWE has really done a great job of recruiting new talent, but also finding established talent that needs a new home. Many of these stars are former world champions in different promotions and add a lot of star power for future generations.
Just last night, WWE had two huge stars shown on screen at NXT Takeover: Dallas and it started all kinds of speculation. Former TNA World Champion Bobby Roode and Japanese star Kota Ibushi were both singled out of the crowd, shown live on the WWE Network, and then profiled on WWE.com.
There’s no concrete word on either of those stars officially having been signed or signing with WWE, but it seems to be coming. Ciampa and Gargano are now locked in.
Considering WWE really needs more tag teams and NXT has a habit of providing good ones, most of the time, then these are good signings.
Both will also be taking part in the Global Cruiserweight Series that started a couple of weeks ago.
As stars keep improving and then move up to the WWE main roster, there ends up being a few holes in the roster of NXT. Plenty of talent remains, but Triple H knows that he always needs to fill in the gaps and think of the future of both NXT and WWE. That’s exactly what he was doing when he signed Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano to exclusive deals.
[Image via WWE]
