#1.) Johnny Gargano‘s Ciampa obsession
Johnny Wrestling had the best character arc in 2018. He started off the year by unsuccessfully challenging for the NXT title before Tommaso Ciampa returned from injury and attacked him. He even cost Gargano his job at NXT, which led to an unsanctioned match with the stipulation that Gargano needed to win to be reinstated to NXT.
He won in one of the greatest matches in WWE history, but their feud wasn’t over. They would have two more matches, the last of which was for the NXT title that Ciampa had won by that point. Ciampa won the subsequent two matches and the story of Gargano’s dangerous obsession with Ciampa led him to taking out Aleister Black as well. He turned heel in a shocking move that absolutely nobody saw coming.
NXT decided not to go with the usual babyface rise-to-the-top arc and the story with Gargano and Ciampa took a whole new twist.
