Report: WWE Nixed Plans To Reunite Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa Over The Summer

This week's episode of "WWE Raw" featured a long-awaited reunion between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, collectively known as DIY. Prior to Monday, Gargano had been kept off of recent WWE programming, last wrestling on the May 15 episode of "Raw." In the midst of his absence, Ciampa shared a "missing" poster for Gargano, seemingly insinuating that the two would soon come back together. Despite Ciampa's recurring hints, Gargano remained absent for months.

Per Fightful Select, Gargano and Ciampa were previously slated to reform DIY earlier in the summer on WWE television, but those plans were nixed, alongside several other storylines. Upon his television return on the June 19 episode of "Raw," Ciampa answered an open challenge put forth by The Miz, who was originally intending to face Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship. Due to a pre-match beatdown by Finn Balor, though, Rollins was unable to defend his title, which led to The Miz offering up a match against any competitor in the "Raw" locker room.

This sequence of events unfolded as a result of last-minute creative changes. Fightful Select reports that Ciampa was initially penciled in as Rollins' challenger in a title match that would later be interrupted by The Judgment Day. As the heel stable presumably attacked Rollins and Ciampa, Johnny Gargano was set to even the odds, and help fend off Judgment Day in front of his hometown of Cleveland. Creative plans for this story were reportedly heavily altered in the days leading up to "Raw" before being dropped completely, which Fightful says led to frustration from several people involved.