Tommaso Ciampa has opened up on the reaction to his AEW Dynamite debut, and the emotions he felt before it happened.
After his WWE departure was confirmed earlier this week, Tommaso Ciampa would quickly find a new home, debuting for AEW on this week’s episode of Dynamite.
Speaking on SHAK Wrestling, Ciampa opened up on the reaction to his debut, and the emotions he was feeling before it took place.
He said:
“A relief. The anxiety I had going into it was just out of this world. I’ve had 30 minute, 45 minute main event matches, all of it, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt the anxiety I felt last night of just ‘I hope they care. Oh my lord do I hope they care’.
“It’s one of them funny things because I’ve heard people say this in the past ‘I hope they remember me’ or ‘I hope they care’ ‘I hope they know who I am’ and I’m always like… you’re Edge. You’re AJ Styles. You’re this, you’re that, what do you think, just phoning in this line.
“Then I’m sitting there in this hidden locker room with just my wife and our little one and I’m just like, all I can think the whole time is ‘please care’.
“To stand there and, in real time, especially since I didn’t have a match, and there wasn’t really a back and forth promo, you’ve got nothing to stress about in that capacity, so I’m in real time able to take everything in and listen and be in the moment.
“I’m in the silhouette and I can feel ‘alright, right now they’re just reacting because this looks cool’. Then Psycho Killer comes up and I think about 30% of them can connect the dots on this, because I haven’t used Psycho Killer on a public stage for 12 years.
“Then the name and the lights hit, and it rocked me to my core. It was one of those, it blew me away, genuinely blew me away. Then the aftermath, the reception online, text messages from my peers, from fans, everything, has just been overwhelmingly positive.
“Which is nuts, because we are so used to, we being all the performers, are so used to it being, at the very best, 50/50. So to get this 99% positive response has been ‘wait what’. Like I’ll take it because I know it’s going away, so I’ll take it. But holy crap, unbelievable.”
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Ciampa’s AEW debut match will take place on tomorrow night’s Collision, with Ciampa facing Mark Briscoe for the TNT Championship.
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