Tommaso Ciampa nearly took his career in a completely different direction after leaving WWE.
Although he ultimately signed with AEW, Ciampa has now revealed that his original plan wasn’t to join Tony Khan’s company at all. Instead, he seriously considered building his reputation overseas before AEW ever entered the picture.
Speaking on the Stick to Wrestling podcast, Ciampa explained that his decision to leave WWE was never about having another contract already lined up. It was about figuring out what came next for him and his family.
“Not at all. No… it was all internalized. It was all just us chatting what’s best for us. And that AEW was just a piece of it because it was really just like, all right, we’re leaving. It’s just what’s next and what’s reality. You know, we’re in a pretty good place, you know, secure place financially, we can take a bit of a risk.”
That risk almost led him away from American wrestling altogether. Ciampa revealed that he was heavily considering wrestling internationally, pointing to the career paths carved out by stars like Kenny Omega, Will Ospreay, and even Finn Bálor before his WWE run.
“We talked about a lot about doing stuff overseas. That was kind of my biggest thing. I was like, I’m going to go out of the country and I always thought it was cool, like what Omega created for himself, Ospreay did to a bit.”
He later explained that Bálor’s rise as Prince Devitt especially appealed to him because of the aura he built by competing around the world before arriving in WWE. Ironically, Ciampa said everything changed because of a leaked report claiming he was leaving WWE. While he never discovered where the story came from, he admitted it unexpectedly opened doors across the wrestling industry.
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me… it just raised this interest in the wrestling world. And then I started to get a lot of inquiry and that started to make me go, ‘Oh, look at what options we have.'”
One option that wasn’t available at the time was AEW. According to Ciampa, Tony Khan refused to discuss a potential deal while he was still under WWE contract, meaning the two sides had no contact until the day Ciampa arrived for his AEW debut.
“AEW wasn’t even a part of that… We never spoke once. I didn’t meet or speak to Tony Khan one time until the day I was at Dynamite for my debut.”
By the time those conversations finally happened, Ciampa said the decision became surprisingly easy. Although he was genuinely excited by the idea of wrestling around the world, he said signing with AEW simply felt right.
“Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut. It felt right in a lot of ways and I’m so happy it worked out the way it did because it genuinely has been just amazing.”
Looking back, Ciampa’s post-WWE future could have unfolded very differently. Instead of embarking on the international run he originally envisioned, he followed his instincts to AEW—a decision he now says has worked out better than he could have imagined.
Did you expect Tommaso Ciampa to join AEW, or would you have preferred to see him build his career overseas first? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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