Tommaso Ciampa gave a great must-listen interview on Corey Graves’ “After The Bell” podcast. Scroll down to listen. Here are a few highlights:
Ciampa on dealing with depression:
“I don’t think it’s too secret to people, especially people who follow my career, like, I’ve dealt with quite a bit of depression in my life, and I don’t believe that you defeat depression. I just believe you learn how to cope with it. You learn your triggers so you can avoid those triggers, and then you learn the things that help you grow out of them. So I say that because over the course of my entire adult life, I’ve had to learn that. That’s not something that someone taught me. I’ve had to learn, you know, these podcasts help or how to control your mindset. I’m going to read this book about, you know, that power of thought. So I’m really big into that, especially as a parent of a five-year old and stuff, like that’s something that it’s in every part of my life now.”
“So because of all of that, like for me, I don’t think anyone’s ever going to be able to break my confidence as a performer again because I always know, and this last Monday is a perfect example. So I walk into Monday Night Raw and I got a contract signing and I got a main event, my first time ever doing that for an Intercontinental title and I know that I’m going to have to walk out in front of San Jose and get this crowd to buy in because I haven’t been, for the last year and a half, I have not been painted in a picture to them that it’s viable that I can beat Gunther for the Intercontinental title. Not even a long shot. A zero shot, for real. I know. I’m a realist. So that’s that moment where you just gotta go like ‘Alright, am I gonna be a woe is me’, and, ‘Crap, I got all these things stacked against me. This isn’t gonna work?’ or do I go out there just go, ‘Hey, if I believe in me in this promo, and I make sure that they know that I believe in me and that I want that title and that title means the world to me’, worst case scenario, they are going to respect, best case scenario they’re going to start to buy in and be like, ‘This son of a, damn it, this guy is passionate. This guy’s intense. This guy’s for real. Maybe he does have a shot’, and then there’s a little physicality and then when I walked out for the main event, the crowd was a little bit better than they were for the contract signing. But still there was that little bit of like, ‘Let’s go Gunther, Gunther sucks.’ Okay. Keep grinding and keep showing them in your face in your body language and your your intensity that is isn’t just the Gunther show tonight, and by that last segment, you know, I heard them coming up and, ‘This is awesome’, and ‘Ciampa’ and whatever it be, and there’s a beauty to that, man.”
On being reunited with Johnny Gargano on Monday Night RAW:
“Unfortunately, I know that the feed cut a little bit before the finale of it. I think for me, the silver lining to it was not only having him back, but the cool thing for both of us was, so DIY really never got going on the main roster. We had a couple matches, couple of years back. I don’t know that many people would even remember that and it’s never been talked about. I came up. I was doing stuff with the Miz and I got that little bit of a rub with a U.S. title opportunity, and then I had to go away for surgery. By the time I’m gone, Johnny’s coming up. He’s doing his own thing. So together, there’s been no tease for DIY.”
“So the fact that Johnny could come out and San Jose could be chanting DIY and give the reaction they gave when we hugged, and then after the show ended, you know, we even got on the mic quickly and just when I shouted, ‘We are DIY’, to have the whole place saying DIY, it was one of those moments where I was like, wait, like, we’ve done nothing to train people. In one night, we tried to build me as a viable contender and then we just brought Johnny out. No build. No expectation. So to have that crowd react and to go, oh, we know that they’re called DIY, that to me was like a big success because it was like, okay, well shoot. That’s with nothing. That’s with no machine behind us, with no anything. I feel like if we start to go now and they start to see us on a weekly basis together, whether it be backstage promos and interactions because we can have a lot of fun that way or matches where we get some time, because that’s really what DIY was in NXT. It was these two dudes thrown together and this wasn’t like the rocket ship was strapped to us by any means.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit After The Bell with Corey Graves with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
