Source: Matthew Osborne of The Trentonian
Jay Lethal is one of professional wrestling’s most talented performers.
He also might be wrestling’s biggest fan.
Lethal, an Elizabeth native, will be on the card in his home state tomorrow night when TNA comes to Asbury Park. Sometimes, though, he can’t believe it, even though he’s living it.
“I’m afraid to set a goal because I think I’ll jinx myself,” Lethal said from his Tampa, Fla., home this week. “I never thought I would get into TNA, but I did. I never set out to wrestle guys like Kurt Angle, and I beat him for the X Division title.”
Lethal also never set a goal — or even imagined — that he’d have a chance to wrestle the legendary Ric Flair, but that’s exactly what he’ll do a week from Sunday at the July 11 Victory Road pay-per-view.
Lethal, 25, grew up watching guys like Flair, and even back then The Nature Boy, 61, was in his twilight.
So a matchup between the two seemed unfathomable even a year ago, but here we are.
Flair joined TNA Wrestling in January along with Hulk Hogan, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy and a host of others who have tried to elevate the company’s standing in the pantheon of wrestling companies.
“A dream come true is almost an understatement,” Lethal said of facing Flair. “Whatever business you’re in — like if you wanted to go into music because you were inspired by Jim Morrison — you rarely get to meet, let alone perform with, the person who made you love the business in the first place.”
Before TNA’s recent shakeup, Lethal had wrestled for nearly three years under his “Black Machismo” character, which parodied wrestling legend Randy “Macho Man” Savage right down to the voice, the robe and the signature moves and gestures.
Black Machismo last wrestled in Trenton in 2008, when he defeated Sanjay Dutt in a “Black Tie Brawl and Chain Match” at the then-Sovereign Bank Arena.
“I did the Macho Man voice when I was wrestling around with my brothers as a kid,” Lethal said. “I knew I could do the voice, but once I started doing the whole thing it kind of caught on.”
Lethal, who said he has never met Savage in person, added Flair to his impression repertoire earlier this year.
“We were sitting around in the UK on an off day, and it got real quiet at one point,” Lethal said. “For some reason, I just started imitating Flair and it went over well.”
Lethal took his imitative form of flattery to the iMPACT broadcasts, shedding his Macho Man robe for feathered ensembles and custom suits. Lethal’s mark of Flair was dead on, including the trademark choppy fits of rage, followed by taking off his blazer in a huff and elbowing it on the canvas.
The fans loved it as they watched Flair fume. Then, before Lethal knew it, he had strutted his way to a match with the “Dirtiest Player in the Game.”
“I didn’t know it would really happen until Hogan made the match on TV that night,” Lethal said. “It still hasn’t really hit me that I am stepping into the ring with Ric Flair. It’s the biggest day of my life.”
It’s not just the Flair match, though, that forces Lethal to pinch himself. His whole meteoric rise in the business still seems surreal from his perspective.
“I grew up watching these guys, and now I’m traveling with them, having lunch with them and working with them in the ring,” Lethal said. “I have to catch myself sometimes when I see Kevin Nash go by and I’m like ‘Wow, that’s Kevin Nash.’ Deep down inside, that still happens to me, because it seems like only yesterday that I was on the other side of the barricade watching them.”
Lethal still does plenty of Jersey-based independent shows, and now he’s back in Jersey with TNA, giving local fans a rare treat to see the elite names in the business.
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