Update: It’s official, per WWE.
NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa will undergo neck surgery tomorrow, WWE.com has confirmed.
Following a medical evaluation today, Ciampa has been scheduled for an anterior cervical fusion.
Stick with WWE.com for more details as they become available.
Original:
Read this news with caution until an official announcement is made via WWE or the champion himself, but Wrestling Observer Radio is saying that WWE has confirmed an upcoming neck surgery for injured NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa. That would mean 6-14 months on the shelf and the NXT Championship being vacated.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Ciampa is getting neck surgery in the next couple of days and WWE confirmed it. He’s not going to wrestle for a long, long time. For how long is not known, but he’s having neck surgery and will have to vacate that NXT Title. Ciampa vs. Gargano is not going to happen at NXT Takeover, so they’ll have to change a lot of plans.”
“It was known that he was going to be out after WrestleMania and that was the idea that he was gonna work through, but I guess the situation in the last week must have gotten so bad that they just had to do the surgery now so he’s just pulled from everything.”
The full five-minute clip of Meltzer talking about the injury is below.
While we originally assumed the injury had something to do with his leg, given his history of knee injuries and the nasty spill Sheamus took onto his leg on Smackdown a few weeks ago, but a neck injury and that much time away again is about as a bad as the news can get.
Ciampa is one of the best performers in the entire company and has been on another level since returning from injury in 2018, and we wish him the speediest and healthiest possible recovery.
