After several months of laying on a crate backstage without saying a word, looking like a total doofus and everything that a solid baby face shouldn’t be, Johnny Gargano sprang up to challenge CM Punk for the WWE championship last week on Smackdown in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Of course, if the office was going to reignite the former NXT champion as a competitor again, that was the place to do it since it would give him the best reaction possible, thus making him look like more of a star in the process.
But, was last week on Smackdown enough to reinvigorate the WWE career of Johnny Gargano? Furthermore, is there anything on the horizon for him beyond this one-week payoff after he was made to look foolish on television for months?
Obviously, it remains to be seen how or if the writing team will follow-up on the CM Punk match from last week, but considering the quality of the match itself, there’s no doubt that management has something to work with in terms of Gargano’s in-ring ability. In fact, since the time that he appeared on WWE programming in 2015 before he officially inked a contract with the company the following year to be a part of the developmental brand, the in-ring ability of Johnny Gargano wasn’t in question. He was brought into the fold during the main era of when Triple H was the boss of NXT, and was dubbed, “a Triple H guy,” similar to his tag partner Tommaso Ciampa, who opted not to renew his WWE contract this past January before he debuted on AEW Dynamite the following week.
That would lend itself to Gargano being booked in a better position with Paul Levesque as the head of creative of the WWE after Vince McMahon was exiled in disgrace. That’s not meant to imply that it would be a form of nepotism, but rather to point out that any booker has performers that they believe can accomplish their vision for a particular show or brand. Keep in mind, when Paul Heyman was put in charge of Raw, and Eric Bischoff was the executive producer of Smackdown, individually for a cup of coffee in 2019, there was a brief, but specific shift in the spotlight that was focused on certain performers at the time, such as Aleister Black since Heyman had a belief in him. The fact that the moves were merely lip service for investors since there was a growing level of discontent with the creative direction of the company from the fan base, which is why the roles were eliminated for Heyman and Bischoff within a year, is a different discussion.
The point is, Levesque had a belief in Gargano during his time as the boss of NXT, and a lot of the success of the brand at the time was based on the specific players that Triple H picked to run with his concept of the show, but for whatever reason, it never translated to the main roster in any significant or meaningful way.
Johnny Gargano actually decided not to renew his WWE contract when it expired in late-2021 to be able to spent more time with his family when his wife, WWE wrestler, Candice LeRae was going to give birth to their son early the next year. Eventually, Gargano made a surprise return to Raw in August of 2022, which provided the artificial pop when someone is back on the show, but the vast majority of the past four years saw him more or less under the radar in the company.
Gargano had a few injuries during that time, including a shoulder injury that put him on the sidelines almost six months, and there was speculation that the routine that saw him planking on a crate since the start of the year was because he re-aggravated the previous shoulder injury. I understand that it was a way to keep him on the show, but even if that was the case, I’d argue that being off of TV completely would’ve been a better option than making him look like a dork for months on Smackdown.
If I had to guess, I’d say that this return to the ring was a one-off that won’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. That’s not to say that Gargano couldn’t do more on the show, he certainly can, or that the audience wouldn’t get behind him since they probably would, but the reality is that there’s no track record to imply that the WWE machine will truly get behind him on the main roster to see how far up the ladder he could go if he got a chance to work to his fullest potential.
As much as I think Gargano has the skills to have a regular, bigger role within the WWE landscape, there is an argument to be made, or a least you can see the reasoning behind why the office might be hesitant to do so.
At 39. Johnny Gargano definitely has a few more years of his theoretical prime left in his career. There are a slew of reasons for it, including talent avoiding many of the pitfalls of the previous generation, as well as the advancements in treatment for injuries and overall recovery for the body, but the reality is that outside of major injuries that can completely derail an in-ring career, the current generation can extend their careers longer than those of a prior era. More protocols, medical staffs, and access to some of the best doctors in the world are much better options than self-medicating and taping up injuries.
So, Gargano isn’t at the end of his career by any means, but at the same time, when you consider the history of his career, it skews toward the latter portion of his time as a wrestler.
He started in the sport during his teenage years and had a few injuries, including a serious back injury, during his independent run. Since Gargano started so young, he simply has fewer years left now than he would’ve otherwise. Along with that, the series of injuries that he had during his time in WWE might get him labeled as injury prone, in terms of how much of an investment the company would or wouldn’t be willing to make in him.
Besides that, he has a few other things working against him, at least from a promotional point of view. TKO, especially at this point, has a business model that looks to promote the larger-than-life aspect of the WWE more than maybe even Vince McMahon would have. Vince’s troupes about sponsorships and commercials were discarded in favor of the bottom line. TKO is trying to sell so much of the sizzle that the argument can be made that they’ve fallen woefully short of the expectations of the substance of the product, souring some fans in the process. It goes without saying that Vince made questionable personal decisions, and not every professional decision that he made was a home run, but it can’t be denied that McMahon’s tireless work ethic was designed to give the audience their money’s worth the vast majority of the time. There’s something to be said for that, because fandom often became generational under McMahon’s leadership.
Does the TKO business plan have any room for someone like Johnny Gargano?
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be, and everyone can rally behind a solid underdog narrative, but taking into account the way that TKO exploits the current assets of the company, with seemingly no thought toward the future, is Mark Shapiro going to see the value in the effort to invest those promotional dollars into Gargano?
The problem is, Johnny Gargano is smaller in statue and doesn’t have the look of a major star. When the bell rings, the guy can go, but who’s going to better represent what the TKO brand is selling today, Roman Reigns or Johnny Gargano? Bron Breakker or Gargano? Oba Femi or Gargano? On the other end of the spectrum, Danhausen isn’t as tall as Andre, but he has a very marketable gimmick. whereas Gargano looks like your friendly neighbor that would help carry your groceries into the house.
So, I don’t think that there will be a major resurgence in his career, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t be successful. The bottom line is, Gargano has made a full-time living from the WWE for more or less the past decade. Given his pure skills in the ring, it seems like he would eventually be a good fit for either the role of a coach at the Performance Center or a producer for Raw or Smackdown so it’s very possible that he will continue to work for the company for years after he retires.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
