Almost a week after finishing up with WWE, former NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa recently made his AEW debut on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. Answering Mark Briscoe's AEW TNT Championship open challenge, Ciampa appeared and shocked the fans.
Debuting to a brand new theme song and moniker, Ciampa kissed Briscoe on the cheeks before walking out. Soon after, Tony Khan and AEW announced an upcoming TNT title match between Ciampa and Briscoe on Collision.
Hours after his Dynamite debut, Ciampa appeared with Rich Ucchino of The Takedown on SI.com for an interview, where he explained his decision to part ways with WWE and sign with All Elite Wrestling.
“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. 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,” Ciampa said. “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.”
Tommaso Ciampa shares more reasons for signing with AEW
In the same interview, he further opened up and shared another reason for signing with AEW. Displaying the new gimmick of “Psycho Killer”, Ciampa explained that he was unable to bring that persona to the WWE main roster.
“There were a lot of times I tried… and for one reason or another [over the years in WWE], it just wasn’t something that I could do. But for Tony [Khan] and the whole crew to just collaborate the way they did and have open arms, and see the vision and just allow it to breathe and have a chance, I’m already thinking six months, 12 months ahead on the evolution of the Psycho Killer.”
Last month, Ciampa challenged Ilja Dragunov for the United States Championship on Friday Night SmackDown, and is now set to take on Briscoe for the TNT Title within a month.
