NXT superstar Johnny Gargano was the latest guest on Ryan Satin’s Out Of Character podcast to discuss all things pro-wrestling, including how important his rivalry was with the Revival during his run with DIY, and how his character has evolved into the incarnation he portrays today. Highlights from the interview are below.
How important his tag team matchup against the Revival was in securing him a spot in NXT:
And then obviously, our work with Revival [Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood]. I cannot say enough good things about that. That really cemented us and really kind of — that was obviously our first TakeOver. TakeOver: Brooklyn at the Barclays Center was our first one and to go in there with those guys and to have that match, I don’t think I’d be sitting here today if that match didn’t go the way it did. I think that match went so well, it made them realize like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, we might have something special here with these guys’ and obviously the rest is history. But to be able to do that in Brooklyn then have the 2-out-of-3 Falls in Toronto, we were made men from those matches.
How he’s been constantly criticized even after proving himself:
I feel like that’s been the constant flow of my career, to where — especially in NXT where I started in a tag team with DIY and it became, ‘Okay, well Johnny’s just a great tag team guy,’ then DIY broke up and then me and Tommaso have these matches — me and DIY broke up and then me and Andrade had these matches. Like, ‘Oh well, he’s just a great singles guy but can he tell a story?’ But then me and Tommaso [Ciampa] had our feud but, ‘Okay, well he can tell a story but you know, what’s his character?’ And now I’m doing The Way thing so I feel like every single time I just try to reach them goal posts that people keep moving. I feel like every time I do something, people move the goal posts. I gotta try to get to that goal post now. So I’m waiting to see what the next thing is but as an artist and as someone who is creative, that just challenges me to change things up and try something new and I think in this business… that’s where being around for a long time, I think that’s where that comes in because the more you change — I get it, it’s a TV show. You don’t wanna watch the same character on that show for five years, I 100 percent get that, especially for me being in NXT for so long, I felt like I needed to evolve, I needed to change and what you see on TV right now is a result of that.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling
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