Tommaso Ciampa recalls his WWE debut segment with The Undertaker
Since signing with the WWE in 2015, Tommaso Ciampa has evolved into a household name in the NXT brand. However, his first appearance in the promotion dates back to 2005 when he worked a segment with The Undertaker.
While talking to Brian Campbell on the State of Combat podcast, Ciampa shed more light on the topic and discussed how he had landed the role with The Phenom at the age of 20.
Tommaso Ciampa and The Undertaker's segment
Tommaso Ciampa was given the task to portray the lawyer of Muhammad Hassan in his debut WWE appearance. Using the moniker Thomas Whitney, ESQ he confronted and eventually got beaten up by The Undertaker.
The former NXT Champion recalled how he was training at Killer Kowalski's center when he got the call from WWE to be an extra talent on SmackDown.
Anytime WWE was in the northeast area that is who they would call. They would call them for extra talent. (Transcript: Wrestlinginc)
Ciampa mentioned that WWE had been looking for a shorter guy to work the segment and standing at 5 ft 11 in, he was the ideal candidate for the job. Moreover, his promo skills played a major role in him landing the gig.
Luckily for me, I have always felt comfortable around the microphone, so in that part, I wasn't nervous, particularly because I had a script that I was reading off of because I was acting like a lawyer that day so I didn't even have to memorize the lines. But the day itself was crazy, because once I got picked, it was probably 4 pm at the time.
With just 4 hours left for SmackDown, Ciampa was rehearsing his lines in front of everyone. He even performed in front of the WWE Chairman and with The Undertaker to make sure that he aced the role.
This lawyer thing had to be an apology that came off sincere, and also in the wrestling world, it had to make sense and also for The Undertaker to come out. I rehearsed that script in front of everybody. I did a solo in front of Vince McMahon in his office. I did an in-ring with The Undertaker, Vince McMahon, and Triple H.
Ciampa is now slated to fight The Undisputed Era alongside Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic at the upcoming NXT TakeOver: WarGames event. At this stage of his career, Ciampa believes that the treatment he received backstage helped him more than his appearance on WWE television at 20 years of age.
Looking back now, it's like I see how big of a deal it was and how crazy it was to have that one-on-one time with everybody as a 20-year-old kid on the independents. It was wild. Everyone treated me incredibly well. I remember that they didn't like the suit that I had on so they went and bought me a suit and let me keep it.
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