Triple H On Tommaso Ciampa Vs. Johnny Gargano, Rapper Announced For WWE Events, John Cena - Wish Day
- WWE has a big 2018 World Wish Day planned with Make-A-Wish, as revealed in the video above. World Wish Day takes place on Sunday, April 29th and the organization will be trying to set a Guinness World Record. Cena and Wish Kid Emelyne are featured in promotional material for the campaign. Full details on the world record attempt are at this link.
- As noted, Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano in an Unsanctioned Match has been announced for WWE NXT "Takeover: New Orleans" during WrestleMania 34 Weekend. Gargano will be banned from the brand if he loses. Triple H recently spoke with NBC Sports and was asked what the original plan for the feud was before Ciampa got hurt several months back. He said:
"So we we're still going in the same direction. The turn was happening and everything was in place, but then the injury happened. When we looked at that it was like, 'Oh my God now what?'
But sometimes the most exciting things and great art takes place out of chaos. In the chaos of that moment we looked at that and said, 'How can we make this even better?' That's one thing I've learned from Vince over the years. Anything can happen and you can do anything with it. You can never be married to an idea, or a thought, or a direction because it can change in the blink of an eye. We had the emotional intensity for this story line between the two of them, but then the injury happened and we needed to reboot. I think it's played out pretty well.
The tough part about it was trying to play out the story line of Johnny Gargano on television with the idea of knowing where you want to go, but not knowing Tommaso was going to be exactly ready to go. So you're playing, 'Where's he at now?' I certainly don't want to rush his return until he's 100 percent and I want to make sure he's healthy and can capitalize on the opportunity, but at the same point in time, I'm glued to the updates on his health so I can begin to tell the story in a direction that gets us to match the timing of his return. So far it's all worked out great and I'm excited where that story line is. To your point from an emotional story standpoint, I don't think you can compare it to the emotion of say Daniel Bryan's return at WrestleMania, but as an angle between two talents it has the most emotional feel to it heading into the weekend."
- South African rapper AKA has been announced to appear at the April WWE SmackDown live events in Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa. He indicated on Twitter that he will not be performing music but he tweeted this promotional graphic, featuring a retro WWE Title belt:
Dreams do come true. @WWE @WWEUniverse ... see you at #WWELIVE SOUTH AFRICA ???? pic.twitter.com/CzSRCSuaz6
— AKA (@akaworldwide) March 29, 2018