Many of Ring of Honor’s finest have made the jump to the WWE. Wrestlers like Tyler Black and Bryan Danielson have made the jump and have main-evented Wrestlemania, while CM Punk held the WWE Championship for 434 days. With NXT, even more top independent wrestlers have been given an opportunity to show the world just how good they are. Wrestlers like El Generico, Kevin Steen, Samoa Joe and Claudio Castagnoli have came from ROH and have made a name for themselves. However, recent rumours have indicated that WWE wants to expand its large pool of talent by snapping up probably the biggest star in ROH right now. This man currently reigns as the ROH World Champion and World Television Champion and has everything needed to become a true star in WWE. This man… is Jay Lethal.
The Jay Lethal story began at Total Nonstop Action wrestling. Having caught the eye of Jeremy Borash, Lethal was given the opportunity to join TNA’s incredible pool of X-Division talent as the division was really making its mark in professional wrestling. With stars like AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe being prominently featured in the division, Lethal had a lot of competition to deal with. After transforming himself into “Black Machismo”, Jay Lethal was elevated to new heights. Wrestlers trying to impersonate stars of the past usually ends up being really good or really bad, but few have been able to come close to Black Machismo. Machismo was an instant hit with the fans and Lethal’s popularity led to him being a multiple time X-Division Champion, even beating Kurt Angle at No Surrender 2007 in a tremendous match. Before leaving the company in 2011, Jay Lethal delivered one of the greatest programs in TNA history with Ric Flair, giving the Impact fans some fantastic segments before he departed.
At Ring Of Honor, Lethal’s went from strength to strength. What’s even better is that Jay Lethal is still only 30 years of age. At this stage of his career, he’s already got an incredible CV to his name. He’s been able to work full-time for a top national wrestling company for years and has delivered as a main-eventer for ROH, being in great matches with some of the best wrestlers in the world. There’s no reason to believe that Lethal couldn’t work a full-time schedule for the WWE and Lethal could provide some quality matches with some of the best wrestlers WWE has to offer.
Signing Lethal would be a huge boost to WWE’s developmental territory NXT. Wrestlers like Sami Zayn and Finn Balor will soon no doubt be joining the main roster and wrestlers like Hideo Itami and Samoa Joe aren’t far away either. The main event scene on NXT might need some fire power if these wrestlers are brought up sooner rather than later. If WWE are looking for a bit of fire power, then Jay Lethal is right up their alley.
In the independent scene, Lethal is a star. Heck, he’s a star from his days at TNA. It’s not like WWE would struggle to introduce Lethal to a casual and younger audience. He trained AJ Lee and was Samoa Joe’s protege in ROH years ago. That’s exactly the type of things that will help Lethal out when he starts up. If Joe were to still be in NXT whenever Lethal arrives, then Joe would be exactly the right person to feud with Lethal and help get him over.
So many NXT stars are being called up to the main roster at the moment, which will leave a lot of opportunities for independent stars to make a name for themselves. WWE will need to sign up some stars in order to fill the void left by those top NXT talents and Lethal is a great place to start.
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