Leon Slater Feels Like His Option C Promo At TNA Lockdown Was The Moment He Became ‘The Guy’ In TNA

Leon Slater comments on his Option C promo at TNA Lockdown.

On the show, Leon Slater competed in a Last Man Standing Steel Cage match for the TNA X Division Title. He defeated Cedric Alexander to become the new champion. Later that night, Slater announced that he’s exercising Option C to go after Nic Nemeth’s TNA World Title.

Speaking on the I Love Wrestling Podcast, Slater was asked if the night he enacted Option C was the moment he stamped his spot as a future main eventer in TNA.

“Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s rare that we get these pinpoint moments in wrestling. I’m not comparing here but just to use an analogy, the Austin 3:16 promo for example. You can point to that moment and you go, ‘Yeah, that’s when he became who he is.’ I feel like, for me, in my TNA run, the moment of me cashing in Option C was like, ‘Leon’s not the kid anymore. He is the guy now.’ Obviously being able to follow through on that at Bound for Glory just solidified that even further. I think people are going to look back on that Option C promo and that cash in in Chicago and use that as a moment to where I entered the next chapter of my career, which is where I am now.”

Later, Slater says that as soon as Carlos Silva handed him the title at Lockdown, he knew that he wanted to go for the TNA World Championship.

“I knew, as soon as he [Carlos Silva] handed it to me, I’m not going to lie. It’s not even a thing of like me thinking the X Division is below me now because I don’t think the X Division will ever be below anyone. It is one of the most legendary divisions in all of professional wrestling and it influenced and changed the game more than I can even put into words. But over the course of me having that initial reign, I feel like I did things that I could never even imagine. Whether it was having the title every week for three or four months on NXT television and having it on that platform or having it on SmackDown against Carmelo Hayes or having it walking into John Cena’s final match. You know all of these moments and all of these matches that I’ve managed to have. This is even excluding all the stuff I did in TNA with the championship, my matches with Je’Von [Evans] and Myron [Reed] and Cedric [Alexander] and Rich Swann. I felt like I had such a beautiful run as X Division champion that I just couldn’t see a world where me being as close to–I feel like I’m a very similar person now to when I was holding the X Division. So I think it’d be difficult for me to take that to new heights or different heights as this version of myself. So I feel like it was time to move on from that and move up to the World Heavyweight Title division and see if I could hang there and see if what I thought in my head was true. It turns out it is.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Slater commented on his TNA World Title win. Fans can read his full comments here.

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