WWE superstar Johnny Gargano recently appeared on the After The Bell podcast where the former triple-crown NXT champion spoke about his WWE return being a surprise, why it didn’t happen in his hometown of Cleveland, and how it reminded him of something that would happen in the Attitude Era. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says his comeback happened very fast, and it was cool that it was a secret:
“So it happened very fast, the whole thing. It’s very fun to be able to literally keep a secret in a time period where that doesn’t happen. Everything leaks nowadays. Everything in wrestling leaks. I remember when I was younger, I loved things during the Attitude Era where you’d be watching Nitro or you’re watching Raw and someone just showed up and you’re like, ‘What the hell is going on? I can’t believe they’re here.’ The dirt sheets and things like that were around, but it also wasn’t as prevalent as is today with the Internet and whatnot.”
Why the return didn’t happen in his hometown of Cleveland:
“That was the most important thing to me for this secret, for this return, was to make it a complete surprise. Obviously, I could have come back two weeks prior in Cleveland, but everyone believed that. Everyone thought that was going to happen. That’s probably why it didn’t happen. It would have been great. I would love to come back to my hometown. I still haven’t wrestled in that arena, which is mind blowing to me, outside of when I was Cedrick Von Haussen, but that’s a different character. It’s a different universe. It was really important for me to just keep this whole thing under wraps as much as possible.”
(H/T and transcribed by WrestlingNews.Co)