WWE Has Ruined Johnny Gargano’s Career

Johnny Gargano was once in the conversation of being in and among the best in-ring workers in the entire professional wrestling world. If you started watching WWE in 2026, you’d be forgiven if you didn’t even know who Johnny Gargano was. Despite being on the Friday Night SmackDown brand, and even making an appearance on-screen most weeks, Gargano has become the most ineffectual and pointless wrestler on the entire WWE roster. Through no fault of his own, he is being completely ruined by WWE, and his current trajectory is showing zero signs of change, which is a huge shame for such a talent.

Johnny Gargano Was The Face Of NXT

• Gargano went from an unsigned cameo to the biggest name in NXT history.
• Gargano was the ultimate underdog babyface on WWE’s developmental brand.
• He had some of WWE’s most memorable matches of the 2010s.

Johnny Gargano first wrestled in NXT in 2015, catching the eye of fans and management alike in his tag team with Tommaso Ciampa. They eventually earned contracts and helped to carry the tag team division, having classic matches with The Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championships. From there, the duo fractured into two singles stars, both of whom rose the ranks in the promotion to become the number one heel and number one babyface alike. Gargano was supremely over with fans thanks to his infectious underdog energy and his spree of show-stealing matches against the likes of Adam Cole, Tommaso Ciampa, Andrade, Ricochet, Aleister Black, and more!

Gargano went on to win the NXT Championship, North American Title, and the NXT Tag Team belts, headlining several shows and doing great work as both a babyface and heel, displaying a lot of depth to his character work in the process. Unfortunately, this did not translate on the main roster.

Johnny Gargano’s Main Roster Career Has Been Up And Down

• Fans were initially behind Johnny Gargano on the main roster.
• Triple H booked Gargano horribly as a singles competitor.
• Gargano & Ciampa reunited to form DIY.

In 2022 after a hiatus, Johnny Gargano surprised fans by showing up on Monday Night RAW… and fans were supportive. However, WWE handed Gargano no character depth, little promo time, and pointless matches each week which left him without any sort of storyline for fans to get invested in. In fact, it took over a year for anything substantial to occur for Gargano, with him finally reuniting with Tommaso Ciampa.

The DIY pairing went on to be one the highlights of the tag team division over the next couple of years, bringing about a lot of excitement on Friday Night SmackDown in particular with some memorable matches (such as a wild TLC showcase at SummerSlam), only for WWE to continually halt their momentum and stop the tag team division from gaining too much steam… for some reason. At least in the tag team division Gargano was getting in-ring time – the same cannot be said for Gargano’s truly disastrous run in 2026.

Triple H & WWE Have Ruined Johnny Gargano

• Gargano feuded with Axiom in 2026.
• Gargano’s loss led to a depressive state.
• For seven months, Gargano has been a joke.

After stealing Axiom’s mask and ultimately losing it back to him on SmackDown, Johnny Gargano got depressed and began lying immobile on a crate backstage. This was explained away as being due to the mask meaning so much to Gargano that it left him heartbroken (the mask he had for a couple weeks, mind you). From there, Gargano has been lying motionless on most episodes of SmackDown, being used as a tool for other wrestlers to cut promos or tell stories, all the while failing to generate any interest whatsoever… which is of no surprise given that he’s doing literally nothing.

Gargano’s rare in-ring performances saw him dumped unceremoniously out of the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal and squashed in a minute by Oba Femi, furthering the descent of this once great in-ring talent. Gargano has not competed in a match for four months, which is a gross misuse of someone who does his best work between the ropes. WWE is ruining Gargano by the weak, lessening his stock and making him an afterthought. There is no real explanation for why WWE is doing this with Gargano, unless of course he is set to join his former partner Ciampa in moving away from the promotion upon the end of his deal. Perhaps one day we will see the return of “Johnny Wrestling”, but it certainly won’t be in WWE.