Johnny Gargano Reveals When His Talks With WWE Resumed

Johnny Gargano returned to the wrestling business a little sooner than he'd anticipated.

Gargano said his goodbyes to the WWE Universe back in December 2021, as he wanted to focus on family matters after becoming a father. Little did he know that soon, Vince McMahon would retire and Paul "Triple H" Levesque would take over creative on the main roster. For Gargano, the decision to return to WWE didn't take long to reach after Levesque was in the saddle.

"It was pretty quick," Gargano told Ryan Satin on the "Out of Character" podcast. "I'm trying to think of the exact timeline of it, because it went by pretty fast. The one thing I will say is, in my downtime, everyone was extremely respectful of my time away. They understood that I kind of wanted to focus on the dad thing for a while."

Gargano went on to say that he would've been content with taking off for a full year, but in the end, loyalty brought him back.

"I was on record even back in the day, I am a Triple H guy, I am a Shawn Michaels guy," Gargano said. "When I left, like I said, I will always be loyal to Hunter and Shawn for the opportunities that they've given me and the friendship that we have, and the working relationship we have. It was nothing but great times, and that's a big reason honestly, and everyone should know this by now, why I was in NXT for so long, because I genuinely loved working with those two, working with everyone in that environment."

Gargano has now found himself on the main roster, feuding with Money in the Bank briefcase holder Austin Theory. Both men are former members of the now-defunct "NXT" stable known as The Way.