Ciampa gets his first name back

Tommaso Ciampa is back.

Monday’s Clash at The Castle go-home edition of RAW marked the first show that WWE went back to billing the former WWE NXT Champion as “Tommaso Ciampa” instead of just the last name. The name change has also been reflected on the official WWE website roster, and internal documents.

WWE gave Matt Riddle his first name back as of last week’s RAW, and Austin Theory was given his first name back as of Clash at The Castle. Angel Garza of Los Lotharios recently indicated that he is getting his last name back, but he and Humberto Carrillo were still billed by just their first names on last night’s RAW.

WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H brought Johnny Gargano back to the company last month, as a RAW Superstar, and it was reported then that WWE is no longer against the idea of using talent real names, or names they had outside of WWE. This was an edict handed down by former WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon, but he retired in late July and since then several of his edicts have been nixed.

Ciampa noted in a recent interview that he was good with his current name, just the last name, as it was given to him by his godmother.

“I’m good with Ciampa,” he said when asked if he’d like a name change earlier this summer. “Tommaso is my birth name, Ciampa is actually my godmother’s name so when I picked that for wrestling there was a lot of meaning behind that for me. The first time it was on the NXT title I got uber emotional and then it was on packaging and figures and stuff.”

In that same interview, Ciampa revealed that he asked to keep the last name as his only name when he moved to the main roster, if his full name was to be curtailed.

“The fact that that gets to live on [as his main roster name], not to get emotional on you, but my godmother during this time has gone through some hard times healthwise,” he said. “So the fact that I kept that – I was like, ‘oh no, if we’re picking one, please, let’s keep Ciampa.'”

Monday’s RAW saw Ciampa help The Miz prepare for his main event match, which saw WWE United States Champion Bobby Lashley retain after interference by Dexter Lumis. Ciampa and Miz sneak attacked Lashley to start the match, and they spent the next several minutes destroying the champion. Miz failed to take advantage and get the win due to the cheap attack, but Ciampa continued to interfere throughout the match and was finally taken out by a cage door shot to the face by Lashley.

Ciampa has been rumored for a strong push on the RAW brand now that Triple H is calling the shots.