Despite previously having repeatedly set his sights on then-United States Champion Ilja Dragunov's title, Tommaso Ciampa has been absent from SmackDown for the last two weeks.
Carmelo Hayes won the title last Friday, and while Ciampa missed out on the United States Championship Open Challenge, it seemed like he might still feud with Dragunov or even shift his sights to Hayes. Instead, the spotlight has been moved to Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae, as they feud with Fraxiom's Axiom.
Unfortunately, it appears Ciampa's continued absence from television is because he plans to leave WWE. According to Bodyslam.net, his contract is nearly at an end, and he currently plans on "finishing his time up with the company without a renewal."
We don't know whether it's down to money, creative, or any other combination of factors, but this is a shame for fans of Ciampa's and DIY.
As noted, we last saw the former NXT Champion on the December 19 episode of SmackDown. He teamed with Gargano in a losing effort against Dragunov and Hayes. Recent years have seen DIY booked as comedic heels, perhaps explaining why Ciampa is now looking for a fresh start elsewhere.
The 38-year-old veteran has been a big part of the Triple H era, especially when he was in NXT. In 2023, Ciampa told Chris Van Vliet this about how he imagines his life after professional wrestling:
"I hope I get what I want out of this. Because I felt like there was a time in NXT where I felt very satisfied I guess, I don't know if that's the exact right word. But I felt very accomplished with like what we did and created. When we were in NXT. Like, there's this false, awful narrative that has now since been created that drives me crazy because people will look back at some of the NXT stuff and just be like, Yeah, well, they didn't want to go up or they didn't want to get called up or like they were scared of this or it's like no, no, we were creating, like, that group of guys."
"NXT blew up when it came from, like Sami Zayn and Claudio Cesaro, to the Kevin stuff to Bayley and Sasha and then our group coming in like with Finn and Shin and then into like Johnny and I and Undisputed. Like if you were in that room at that moment, like you knew how special it was, it'd be like going to ECW and saying like, Hey, Tommy Dreamer, and Sandman and Raven. You guys don't want to leave this place and go, you know, because WWE that's where the big stars are. You're wanting to do like WrestleMania isn't like, yes, but yeah, I want to see if we can make this WrestleMania first."
"That's literally what it was like. It was like, can we get 10,000 people? Can we get a million-dollar gate? Can we do that multiple times? Can we get TakeOver to be equivalent to Mania? Can we can we do 20,000? Like our mindset was like, Oh, we're gonna get TV now. How far can [it go]? It wasn't like it was a weird us against them. And it wasn't like we don't want to go there. That same company, same umbrella, we're not stupid. We know. We want to make this thing. Bigger than that."
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.