Johnny Gargano made his long-awaited return to professional wrestling a couple of weeks ago, surprising the Monday Night Raw crowd when “Rebel Heart” echoed throughout the Scotiabank Arena. While Gargano technically never left WWE for another promotion, he was not under contract to World Wrestling Entertainment for over nine months. After finishing his responsibilities in NXT towards the end of 2021, Gargano elected to become a free agent and spend time with his family.
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While Gargano’s WWE return became writing on the wall once Triple H took over main roster creative, Johnny Wrestling revealed he did consider entertaining options outside of WWE.
“Obviously, it crossed my mind, but I was at the point to where I wasn’t ready to come back yet. I was enjoying myself. I have people that work around me that go out and talk to other places, and I have a great team around me that have those discussions so I don’t have to,” Gargano told WWE After The Bell (h/t Fightful). “That was a big thing too while I was gone. I was very focused on being a dad and letting the business stuff be handled by other people. It was cool that promotions respected that and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to leave Johnny alone, but we’ll talk to his people about what could potentially happen.’ I’m lucky to be in that spot. It’s weird to say something like that given I’m from the indies and I do everything myself.”
Gargano continued by revealing he watches “everything” in the professional wrestling world.
“I watch everything. I’m a wrestling fan. We’ll all wrestling nerds at the end of the day. I’m a wrestling fan. It always just came back down to, and I said this in my return promo, when I was a kid, I dreamed of being Intercontinental Champion,” Gargano said. “I dreamed of being WWE Champion and wrestling at WrestleMania. Those things hold so much weight to me. I don’t know if 20-30 years down the line, if I could forgive myself for not trying. I never really tried. I did everything in NXT and was fulfilled in NXT and proud of it, but I didn’t try on that scale yet. I haven’t done it and I wanted to do it.”
Fans won’t have to wait long to see Gargano back in a squared circle, as the former NXT Champion makes his in-ring return next Monday on Raw.
