Appearing on the AEW Close Up show with Renee Paquette, new TNT champion Tommaso Ciampa admitted that the biggest factor joining AEW was money.

Ciampa said that when he was in NXT and moving to main roster, he was not financially stable to take the risk at the time so he decided to stay put.

But now, with two children and financial stability, Ciampa said he was ready to bet on himself and make the leap of faith.

“That’s the biggest thing that you start to go is like we are getting a definitive income, it’s a salary,” Ciampa told Paquette.

“When I left NXT to make the move to the main roster, financially, we were not ready to do that, and we knew it,” he continued. “So, there was not really a question of, ‘Okay, let’s take a risk. Let’s bet on ourselves.’ We got at that time a three-year-old, now a seven-year-old. It just wasn’t in the cards. Yeah…but now I’m starting to go, yeah, I think we are at the point financially, let’s take the risk!”

Ciampa won the TNT title in his first match in AEW, so for now, betting on himself is paying dividends.