Tommaso Ciampa has only been signed to AEW for a few days and he’s already getting the star treatment. The 40-year-old wrestler debuted on AEW Dynamite, confronting Mark Briscoe for the TNT Championship. The two have a history from their time in Ring of Honor.
Ciampa and Briscoe’s match was made official for tonight’s AEW Collision, Ciampa’s debut match with AEW. The match went almost to the 20-minute time limit as the men brawled all around the ring. As Briscoe set up a table to put Ciampa through, he reversed the move and laid Briscoe out with a running knee to his head. As the challenger celebrated with the crowd, Briscoe was waiting with an elbow drop that sent them both through the table.
Ciampa executed another running knee strike to Briscoe, but this time it kept him down for the three-count. And with that, there’s a new TNT Champion! Post-match, former TNT Champion Kyle Fletcher confronted Ciampa, clapping from the top of the ramp.
“I’m a hundred times better now than I was then [2018]. That was nothing,” Ciampa recently told The Takedown on SI. “That was absolutely nothing. I’m physically better. I’m mentally sharper. My storytelling, my psychology is on a whole different level than it was back then… what people are about to see is going to blow their minds. It’s gonna shock the world, because I finally have a shot to find out if I’m as good as I think I am.”
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