Tommaso Ciampa has revealed that AEW was his top priority once he decided to enter free agency. The 40-year-old veteran, who recently captured the TNT Championship from Mark Briscoe, opened up about the process that brought him to the company immediately after his previous contract expired.
Speaking to Bleacher Report, Ciampa noted that while he knew where he wanted to go, maintaining professional integrity regarding contract tampering was crucial to him. He noted that he waited until he was legally able to negotiate before contacting AEW management.
“AEW was head and shoulders where I wanted to be,” Ciampa said. “I take everything pretty seriously when it comes to doing it by the book. And with my contract coming up the way it was, I was like, ‘Well, I can’t really have a conversation right now, so let me just wait this out.’”
A Calculated Statement
Ciampa also addressed the statement he released a week prior to his official free agency. He admitted that the move was a strategic decision designed to gauge interest and validate rumors circulating within the industry.
“I did put the statement out a week early because I wanted to, one, see what the response was online and in the industry, and two, I wanted people to go, ‘Oh, so that weird report that came out a month ago, there’s some truth to that.’ So that was definitely on purpose,” he explained. “When my wife and I had the conversation about what’s next, and obviously we’re done here with WWE and we’re going to move on and bet on ourselves and figure out this next chapter. A big conversation was AEW and how do I get there.”
Once he was free to talk, the deal came together rapidly. Ciampa noted that his first conversations with the company took place just one day before his debut on Dynamite.
“Tuesday I had a couple of quick conversations with QT Marshall and RD Evans, who used to work with me in ROH,” Ciampa said. “We always had great chemistry and he’s a writer now. This thing worked out extremely fast. Faster than I would have ever guessed.”