10 Forgotten TNA Appearances By Ex-WWE Stars
1. AJ Lee
The clip of a young AJ Lee meeting her idol Lita at a WWE signing in 2001 is well known, but the future Divas Champion was closer to the industry for almost as long ahead of her big break with the market leader several years later.
Just five months after the first match and two before her second, Lee appeared in the crowd for TNA's Hard Justice 2008 pay-per-view as a member of "Jay Lethal's Family" ahead of his Black Tie Brawl-And-Chain match with former friend Sonjay Dutt. It wasn't a work either - she was dating Lethal then and had trained in the pair's New Jersey locale.
"Family" were required in the crowd on that particular show because Lethal had theoretically lost all but them in his run against Dutt. 'The Playa From The Himalayas' and Lethal's former on-screen partner So Cal Val had ended up together after Val and 'Black Machismo' had been set to marry. The most TNA of final payoffs, this was a chain match made bad between great wrestlers hampered by the full tuxedos they had to wear throughout. AJ missed the "Women's Revolution" era of WWE by a few months, so she got more than her share of this particular brand of nonsense when she got signed.