A major update on the status of the current NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa.
During the most recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer broke the news that the current NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa is set to undergo neck surgery. Meltzer stated that Ciampa will be undergoing said surgery this week and the idea within WWE was that Ciampa was going to work through the injury heading into NXT TakeOver: New York but the injury reached a point where it had to be taken care of now.
WWE/NXT released the following statement on the matter:
NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa will undergo neck surgery tomorrow, WWE.com has confirmed.
Following a medical evaluation today, Ciampa has been scheduled for an anterior cervical fusion.
Stick with WWE.com for more details as they become available.
Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is a surgery to remove a herniated or degenerative disc in the neck. An incision is made in the throat area to reach and remove the disc. A graft is inserted to fuse together the bones above and below the disc.
At the recent NXT TV tapings, Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano competed in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and when they lost their tournament match, Ciampa attempted to turn his back on Gargano again but Gargano flipped the script and got the upper hand on Ciampa which was to set up their unofficial NXT Championship match at TakeOver: New York on April 5th.
Tommaso Ciampa was in headlines over the weekend because he was pulled from his World League Wrestling appearance on March 9th and was also pulled from his Chaotic Wrestling appearance on March 15th. In late February, Meltzer reported that Ciampa was dealing with an injury but the severity of said injury was unknown at the time. Chaotic Wrestling founder Brian Fury stated during a video update about Ciampa being pulled from the March 15th show, that he had no clue why Ciampa was being pulled and WWE provided few details to him at the time about why "The Blackheart" was no longer returning to his former promotion. It was in May of 2017 that Tommaso Ciampa ruptured his ACL at TakeOver: Chicago and he made his return at TakeOver: Philadelphia in January of 2018.
Former NXT North American Champion Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa worked RAW and SmackDown Live in February but their runs on the main roster were brief as Ciampa and Sheamus had an awkward landing during a tag match on SmackDown Live. As more information about the future of the NXT Title picture comes to the forefront, we will update you here on Fightful.