Pro-wrestling superstar Johnny Gargano was the latest guest The Sessions with Renee Paquette, where the former triple-crown NXT champion spoke about his final days at the yellow-and-black brand, later revealing a gift that he gave to WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels that made both men cry. Highlights from the interview are below.
How he gave Michaels a box with pictures of them together, as well as some ring gear that made them both cry:
“I did like tribute gear to him at the In Your House: TakeOver. And I had a headband and no one in the world has a piece of the TakeOver gear I’ve worn so me and Candice the night before did a little shadow box and we did the shadow box with the headband in it and we put a picture of me and him dressed in gear and then me and him when I was a kid and I met him. Side by side pictures. Then I wrote a nice message on the back as well about how much he meant to me and how much he’s meant to my career. I was to give that to him right before I went through the curtain. Obviously, he started crying, I started crying, and then it’s funny because Candice has never seen me cry so that was kind of like the first time she had ever seen me cry. She was very adamant that if I didn’t cry when the baby was born, I was going to be in big trouble.”
How difficult it was for him to not see any familiar faces around NXT anymore:
“To be able to do that and have that moment, I wasn’t going to miss the place, I was going to miss the people. The thing is you’re around these people for six years and then you’re just gone. You’re in this bubble for so long, I was in this bubble for six years and I was extremely lucky to where I never had any injuries. I was on TV with storylines consistently for six years to where I’m just around it at all times. Especially with the performance center, it was like a weekly thing, I would go in and out and work out and go and see people and that’s a thing that would happen for me for six years. Now it’s just gone.In wrestling, it’s a weird thing where we all still live in Orlando but you don’t see people anymore, you don’t see them anymore and that was the hardest part with the way I saw NXT going with Adam [Cole] leaving, Kyle [O’Reilly] contract coming up and everyone out the door. We were around these people for so long and then you look around the locker room and all your friends are gone. It affects you, it hurts you because now you’re not seeing your friends anymore on a daily basis, it makes you sad.”
Says Triple H was going to pose with his child and do the finger-pointing picture:
“I talked to him a few times, he texted me and Candice when Quill was born obviously and congratulated us. He said he can’t wait to meet Quill and my one request is that when he meets Quill, can he please take the finger-pointing picture with him and he said he would be honored to do that. So that’s what we have in the docket, Hunter is going to hit Quill with the next finger-pointing picture.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)