10 TNA Rejects Doing Pretty Well For Themselves Elsewhere

4. TJ Perkins

T.J Perkins
WWE.com

When the full list of competitors was announced for the 2016 WWE Cruiserweight Classic, TJ Perkins wasn't roundly spoke of as a potential winner. He would have some good matches, sure, but the brackets seem to indicate a second round loss to Johnny Gargano.

Well how wrong we all were, as Perkins ran all the way to the final where he defeated Gran Metalik to become the brand new WWE Cruiserweight Champion. It represents the pinnacle of a long career for wrestling's youngest veteran, and he certainly deserves his position as the centrepiece of the new cruiserweight division.

Which makes it all the more puzzling why TNA decided to put him in an Aldo Montoya mask and call him Manik. TJP would also get caught up with Storm and Sanada in The Revolution, and it did about as much for him as it did for Sanada. Manik was released by TNA in January of this year. Nine months later, he is the number one cruiserweight in WWE.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.