Popular Netflix Series Inspired Johnny Gargano's WWE Return

Of all the big returns WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H has engineered since taking over the creative direction of the company, fans have arguably responded most passionately to Johnny Gargano. The former NXT triple-crown champion chose not to renew his contract with WWE late last year. In the interim, he and wife Candice LeRae welcomed a child, Quill.

As he explained on the latest episode of Corey Graves' "After the Bell" podcast, "I was totally fine taking this year, spending it with my baby and working on my dad bod ... with wrestling not being in my life." But he'd been streaming a fair amount of TV during his time, including one notably bingeable retro-horror franchise. 

"You guys have seen 'Stranger Things'?" he asked Graves. "The song 'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush became very popular. The first thought that went through my head was, 'That's Shawn and The Undertaker's song from WrestleMania [26]. Placebo covered it. And I watched the hype video of Shawn and Taker, and I sat there in the kitchen as [Candice] is doing baby stuff, and it just hit me: This is where I want to be and this is what I want to do — to have videos like this about me. And I haven't had that WrestleMania moment yet. So in a roundabout way, 'Stranger Things' playing that song and me correlating it to Shawn v. Taker at Mania led me to be like, 'That's what I want to do. I want to wrestle at WrestleMania. So that's how we ended up where we are."

The lesson? As Kate Bush once also sang alongside Peter Gabriel, don't give up.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "After the Bell" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.