In an interview with The Takedown on SI, Tommaso Ciampa talked about his decision to leave WWE and sign with AEW.
The former NXT and WWE Tag Team Champion, who appeared on AEW Dynamite just days after his deal with WWE expired, explained what led to his decision to leave his former employer:
It’s something I’ve been leaning towards for quite some time. I don’t know that I can say there’s one sole factor that led to it or caused it. I think it’s one of those things when your contract is coming to an end, you naturally have discussions.
Ciampa last competed on the December 15, 2025 episode of WWE SmackDown, teaming with Johnny Gargano to face Carmelo Hayes and Ilja Dragunov.
His AEW debut saw the “Psycho Killer” answer the open challenge of Mark Briscoe, who will defend his TNT Championship against Ciampa on the 1/31 edition of Collision.
On joining AEW in the next chapter of his career, Ciampa said:
If I wrestled in the 90s, I’d wanna be a part of ECW… Early 2000s, you wanna be a part of Ring of Honor. I was lucky I got to do that a little bit. 2010s, I think for me at least, I wanted to be part of NXT Black and Gold. And when I looked at the landscape of professional wrestling in the 2020s… the answer was AEW, man. That’s what I want to be a part of.