All great and successful wrestlers have humble beginnings. Former NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa is no exception to this rule.

The wrestling veteran recently had an interview with Quetzalli Bulnes on El Brunch de WWE. During the talk, the former NXT star told the story of how he got started in wrestling. Ciampa revealed that he wanted to start his training at Killer Kowalski’s wrestling academy when he was still in school.

He couldn’t do it because his parents didn’t allow him to enroll. So Ciampa used to go to the facility and watch other students as they trained. Tommaso Ciampa finally got in after graduating high school and buying his first car:

“The rule my parents had was that I had to finish high school and I had to get my own car. So my first car was like a $500, beat-up van, like real old. [It was] terrible, rusty, but just good enough to get me to the facility and back.” said Tommaso Ciampa,

He continued, “The second I got the car, I just went and [signed up]. That was my graduation present, I paid tuition for the wrestling school. I started with Killer’s and then from there just snowball. I ended up traveling kind of all over the country with it.”

Apart from this, Ciampa also talked about his relationship with Johnny Gargano. He said that he misses sharing the locker room with his DIY partner. Though he mentioned how they live close to each other and they see each other a lot.