Tommaso Ciampa Is Glad He Didn’t Come Up In the Current Wrestling Era

Tommaso Ciampa says that he feels lucky that he didn’t come up in today’s wrestling scene, as he wouldn’t have made it. Ciampa began his wrestling career over 20 years ago and came up through the indie scene in the late ’00s and early ’10s before coming to WWE and (now of course AEW.

Ciampa spoke about being a veteran and training with the legendary Killer Kowalski in an interview with SB Nation. You can see the highlights below:

On Being Happy As a Veteran In the Current Era:

“If I came up in today’s era with such heavy social media influence, I don’t know if I’d even know how to navigate it. I’m very lucky I came up during a time where you just went to class, put in the work, and put in the reps to get where you needed to go. If it relied on social media presence alone, I don’t think I would have done very well.”

on Training With Killer Kowalski:

“Killer would always invite us out to lunch after class and chat with us for as long as we wanted to answer questions. He was a huge influence on my style and approach. ‘Make the people believe’ was his main quote that he would repeat, so I’ve taken that to heart.”