Johnny Gargano explains why his character was planking for over six months
Johnny Gargano’s planking storyline on WWE SmackDown ran from February to September of 2026. In a video published to his YouTube channel, Gargano explained what was going on with his character…
“It’s complicated, but the easy answer is right there. I feel like everyone expected me to be that guy, and I tried to be that guy, and I couldn’t. I felt like I was letting a lot of people down, and I hated that.
Even more so, I think you heard Quill [his son] ask in the vlog, ‘Did you get the treasure?’ Quill watches the show. He watches SmackDown, and he loves video games. In his head, when you win or get a championship like those, you get the treasure. It’s a treasure to him.
I don’t know how many times over the past year we would fly out on Thursday, and before I would leave, Quill would ask me, ‘Dad, are you gonna win? You gonna get the treasure?’ And I would tell him, ‘I’ll try, man. I’m really, really going to try.’
Then I would have a match on SmackDown, and I’d lose. I’d come back through the curtain, and Candice would have the phone in her hand. She’d be on FaceTime, and she’d show me Quill just crying, bawling his eyes out, saying, ‘Daddy lost. He’s not gonna get the treasure. No, there’s no treasure.’
That broke me. So, in my head, it was easier to just not try than to get up and fail and let people down. I’m not saying that’s right. I’m not saying that’s the way to go about things, but that’s what I did.
I don’t know. Cleveland changed everything. I got a chance at the WWE Championship, a title I’ve dreamed of my whole life, and I took a leap of faith and stood up. That reaction to me changed everything because it showed me that it didn’t matter. It showed me that people still believed in me. Even when I gave them no reason to, they still believed in me.
And that just showed me, I don’t know, if I try, if I really, really try, I think I can make anything happen.”