Triple H Explains Situation Surrounding Tommaso Ciampa's Injury
WWE fans were shocked and saddened back on March 6 when it was reported that reigning NXT Champion [...]
WWE fans were shocked and saddened back on March 6 when it was reported that reigning NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa would have to undergo a neck surgery that would cost him the championship. The timing of the injury couldn't have been worse, given that Ciampa had debuted alongside Johnny Gargano on the main roster less than a month prior and were building to a main event championship match at NXT TakeOver: New York that was more than two years in the making. WWE broke the news shortly afterwards that his surgery would be an anterior cervical fusion, and Triple H appeared on the next NXT television taping to announce that Ciampa was stripped of the championship. A new main event for TakeOver: New York was made (Gargano vs. Adam Cole in a Two-out-of-Three Falls match), and both men were pulled from main roster televised appearances.
In a media conference call for TakeOver: New York on Thursday, Triple H told the press that the WWE knew about Ciampa's ongoing injury and that a surgery would be needed at some point down the road, but didn't pull the trigger on getting the surgery until Ciampa's condition worsened. They also opted to let Ciampa make the main roster jump for the sake of growing his exposure to WWE fans.
"Obviously we knew about it [his injury and necessity for a surgery]," Hunter said. "That was going to be a necessity going forward, but the decision was still made that let's do this with the main roster, let's give him that exposure. Take some time off, we'll use that in whatever way we can. He'll take the time off, get fixed up and be back and better than ever and move forward from there. Unfortunately with the type of injury he had it went from one thing to another very rapidly and we couldn't wait. It sort of changed from something that was being manageable to being something that... this is not a risk we're willing to take for anything. So we just moved to him immediately doing the surgery at that point and (he's) starting on the road to recovery.
"A lot of thought went into all the conversations, but clearly it was something we knew about and there was a plan for him on all aspects of it, including the, 'He's going to have to take some time off down the road here very soon to get this fixed [plan],'" he continued.
Ciampa has only tweeted twice since the surgery. The first was shortly after the procedure where he was wearing a neck brace, while the other came when he was officially stripped of the title.
"A small piece of me died tonight," Ciampa wrote.
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