10 Wrestlers Who Revived Their Careers On The Indies
4. Jay Lethal
Jay Lethal is the kind of wrestler TNA should have been built around.
He was just 20 years old when he signed in 2005, and immediately entered the celebrated X Division. By 2007, however, he was locked into a Randy Savage impersonation act, and while Lethal was always wildly entertaining as “Black Machismo,” it was a novelty gimmick that offered little scope for main event progression.
Lethal teamed with Consequences Creed (the future Xavier Woods) thereafter, and feuded with Ric Flair prior to his 2011 release. Impact had greatly misused him, and while Jay found himself cast aside, he was still only 27, and had plenty of time to rebuild his career.
Lethal returned to Ring Of Honor just a few weeks after leaving Impact, and eventually embarked upon the kind of run he should have experienced in TNA. He captured the company’s Television Championship, holding it for a record 567 days, and elevated it to such a level that many considered it more prestigious than ROH’s World Title, which he won in June 2015.
Lethal spent four months as a double champion, and held the World Championship all the way through to August 2016, having become ROH’s franchise player long before then.