Johnny Gargano Talks Possibility Of WWE Sending RAW And SmackDown Talent To NXT

In an appearance on Busted Open Radio, NXT's Johnny Gargano was asked about the possibility of WWE sending talents from RAW and Smackdown to work the NXT brands. Gargano was unsurprisingly enthusiastic about the idea, especially when it came to someone like Cesaro.

"I think I would absolutely love that," Gargano said. "I think NXT works best, and this is obviously my opinion, I think NXT is a third brand. I think you should be able to send guys from NXT to RAW and Smackdown. You should be able to send guys from RAW and Smackdown to NXT. You brought up a guy like Cesaro. Trust me, we would love to have Cesaro. I think the dream matches you could get with Cesaro in NXT, they're amazing. Cesaro is one of them.

"Obviously there's a lot of guys that I'd like to work with as well, that I haven't had the chance to yet. Guys like AJ Styles, guys like Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan was another guy on my list. Those three are the ones I get when I'm asked who I'd like to be in the ring with. So I would love if we'd start sending some guys to NXT. Who knows? I think Johnny Gargano vs. Cesaro on a TakeOver would be pretty wild."

Co-host Dave LaGreca asked Gargano how important the commentators were to NXT's success. Gargano then took the time to put over the current announcers, long time friend Vic Joseph, Beth Phoenix and Wade Barrett, while also talking about how he'd work with former announcer Mauro Ranallo to help get the story of his match across.

"So important man, so important," Gargano said in regards to the commentators. "For me, what I would always do, especially during my TakeOver run, I would always get with Mauro. And we would sit down together and we would basically tell this story and I'd say 'okay, here's the story we're trying to get across in this match.' So Mauro was absolutely great with that. And now I cannot say enough great things. I'm biased, because he's a Cleveland guy. He was in my wedding actually, he was a groomsman in my wedding. I don't know how many people know that but Vic Joseph is one of my best friends in the world.

"So to have him be along on this journey with me, to be on this ride with me where he's able to call my matches now, and hopefully call me winning the NXT Championship tomorrow. Like that's a dream come true for both of us. Two kids from Cleveland, Ohio, who get together to watch Browns games all the time, being successful in WWE. That was always our dream. But outside of Vic Joseph, Beth Phoenix, Wade Barrett, absolutely phenomenal. So good at what they do and they make us all sound so good. And like you said, stories aren't able to be told without great narrators, and we have some of the best in the world."

Gargano also talked about having so many great minds to bounce ideas off of working for NXT. And while he called NXT boss Triple H one of his go to guys, his main one is Triple H's long time best friend and a fellow founding member of D-Generation X.

"So my go to guy is Shawn Michaels," Gargano said. "And that's wild to say now. For my money, Shawn Michaels is the best to ever do it. And to have the best to ever do it in my back pocket, to where if I'm like 'I've got to come up with something here.' To be able to send him a text and go 'hey Shawn, what do you think about this?' To be able to bounce ideas off him. Obviously it's a dream come true for someone like me who looked up to that man his whole career, basically his whole life. So Shawn is my go to guy.

"Obviously Hunter is one of my go to guys as well. And that speaks to what NXT is though. To be able to just go up to Hunter, the boss, the guy who makes the decisions at the end of the day and say like 'okay, what are we thinking here?' That's what makes the product so good. There's no weird middle man. There's no weird in between where I'm like 'I'm going to try to do my best but I don't really know what they want.' I'm going to go up to the guy. I'm going to go up to Triple H, I'm going to text him and say 'hey, what do you want out of this?' And we're going to get the right role there. Shawn, Hunter, Matt Bloom, Steve Corino, all of those guys. We have some of the best minds in the world at NXT, in that building at the Performance Center. And I think if you're a young guy, man. I know it's intimidating at first, because it was intimidating for me, especially to go up to Shawn Michaels and say 'hey, what do you think of this?' But to have those minds in that building, take advantage of it. You've gotta take advantage of it."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription