Tommaso Ciampa Recounts His WWE Debut In 2005 And His Interactions With The Undertaker

NXT Superstar Tommaso Ciampa recently joined Lilian Garcia on her Chasing Glory podcast. The former NXT Champ talked about his initital debut back in 2005 in WWE, as well as his segment with the Undertaker.

Below are some highlights with a H/T to Fightful.com for the transcriptions.

When remembering the moment, Ciampa discussed his interactions with Stephanie McMahon.

“Somebody gives you this script you’re gonna read and I remember asking the writer, ‘How do you pronounce a couple of words?’ I had no clue what I was saying,” recalled Ciampa when discussing his role as a lawyer. “It went from that and all of a sudden, Stephanie McMahon came over and she took me for a tour. Like a 20-minute, ‘I’m gonna show you around and make you comfortable.’ I think they were in a weird spot and maybe Stephanie’s way of taking me around was to say like, ‘Should we trust him?’ She was the nicest person. I actually told her at the PC when I got to NXT, ‘Being in the ring with Undertaker was awesome, but my takeaway was how Stephanie treated me.’ This person, who didn’t need to treat me good, took her time and treated me like an equal. She said to me, ‘Now, you’re kind of in that position.'”

Ciampa also shared a funny story about the Deadman and how he called him “Daddy.”

“At Chaotic, where I was training, we’d always call dinner ‘treats.’ Everybody would call each other ‘daddy.’ For no reason. Taker picks me, chokeslams me, and he’s going to scoop me for the Tombstone and as he’s picking me off the mat he goes, ‘Nice and easy, daddy.’ And I’m trying not to laugh to myself. That was the one story I immediately told [my training partners]when I got back. ‘Taker says ‘daddy’ too! Is this like a wrestling thing?'”