Tommaso Ciampa says successful neck surgery and WWE's reduced road schedule have allowed him to perform on the main roster.
Ciampa noted in an interview with Lillian Garcia in 2019 that the "300-day" schedule for Raw and SmackDown talent was not something he was interested in. During a recent appearance on Out of Character, however, Ciampa addressed what has changed since then.
"300 days doesn't exist anymore. So, that was big and that was something that just kind of recently became a shift," Ciampa said regarding the WWE live event schedule. "Prior to the pandemic, it slowed, and then now it's just a whole new game. The pandemic itself, the neck surgery, and how it all went down and I was home almost every single night of Willow's [his daughter] first three years."
"You build such a relationship with your child in those first few years," he continued.
Ciampa would also say that his four-year-old daughter has traveled with him on some loops, including in Wisconsin back in June.
"Having the time at home with her for the pandemic, the schedule changing for the main roster, and interest in wrestling in general. Those were two big factors and then the success of the neck surgery.”
"I was in - I don't want to say an abnormal amount of pain - but an abnormal amount of discomfort for years with my neck and I kept a lot of it to myself."
Ciampa continued to say that his neck surgery was so successful, that he now feels as though he could wrestle another "10 or 20 years."
"You don't know the discomfort when it's your norm, and it was my norm. So, now all of a sudden, I'm like, 'Whoa, like I feel amazing, I'm getting back in the ring. I'm bumping. I'm having matches, we're doing WarGames, I way overdo it in Portland just to see if I can as a personal test type of thing," he continued.
"I'm like, 'Wait, I thought I only had a few years left, but I might have 10 or 20 years left.' So once you start opening that up, and you don't put an expiration date on your career, it was like 'okay, what do I want to accomplish?' Because I honestly felt like when I won the NXT Title, that was it for me. I've hit my pinnacle, I have this crappy neck, I'm probably in my twilight."
"Now we have this healthy neck, now we have this healthy baby, we have all this time at home, everything changed in such a great way."
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