Above is a very good interview Chris Van Vliet conducted with Johnny Gargano the night after NXT TakeOver: New Orleans, where “Johnny Wrestling” finally vanquished Tommaso Ciampa in a critically acclaimed main event. It’s a wide ranging interview spanning many topics that is well worth the watch, but one quote stood out to me.

“That’s the thing too, people are so afraid to be human beings in this day and age, especially in wrestling. They think you need to be this really tough, angry person at all times. That’s not real. I’m a real dude. I think that’s a big reason why a lot of people say that I’m the last true babyface in the world. ... People are so used to like ‘we want to cheer the bad guy, we like shades of grey, and we like dirty, down, gritty guys’ and you look at me and I’m not dirty, I’m not down, and I’m not gritty. ... I think it’s just because people can relate to me. People can see that I am a real person and I’m a real person that’s just living my dream. At the end of the day, I think that helps them root me on. It’s like ‘look, if this guy can do it, I can do it as well. I see myself in him.’ I think that’s my trick, that’s my secret.”

For my money, one of the biggest issues in professional wrestling is how unnatural everyone acts and reacts to everything. No, it isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be writing it like it is. Look what happens when you do!

Yet another reason to like Gargano.