Leon Slater has pinpointed the exact night he stopped being TNA’s exciting young prospect and became the company’s top guy. Speaking on the I Love Wrestling Podcast, Slater said his Option C promo at TNA Lockdown was the moment everything changed — and his Bound for Glory title win only sealed it.
At Lockdown, Slater first survived a brutal Last Man Standing Steel Cage match against Cedric Alexander to win the TNA X Division Championship. Then, later that same night, he shocked the crowd by announcing he was exercising Option C — trading in the X Division title for a shot at Nic Nemeth’s TNA World Championship.
Leon Slater’s Option C Moment at TNA Lockdown
Asked whether the Option C night was the moment he stamped himself as a future main eventer, Slater did not hesitate. He compared it to the kind of rare, career-defining promo that fans can point to years later — using the famous Austin 3:16 moment as an analogy, while stressing he was not comparing himself to Stone Cold Steve Austin.
“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,'” Slater said. He added that following through at Bound for Glory “solidified that even further” and predicted fans will look back on the Lockdown promo and the Chicago cash-in as the moment he entered the next chapter of his career.
Why Slater Gave Up the X Division Title
Slater revealed he made up his mind the instant TNA president Carlos Silva handed him the title at Lockdown. That was not a slight on the X Division, he stressed — he called it one of the most legendary divisions in wrestling history, one that “influenced and changed the game” more than he can put into words.
Instead, Slater felt he had already squeezed everything out of his X Division run. He carried the title on NXT television for months, defended it on SmackDown against Carmelo Hayes, and even walked into John Cena’s final match with it. Add in his TNA wars with Je’Von Evans, Myron Reed, Cedric Alexander and Rich Swann, and Slater felt it was time to test himself at the next level.
“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,” he said. “It turns out it is.”
And the results back him up. At Bound for Glory, Slater defeated Nic Nemeth to become the youngest TNA World Champion in company history — five years earlier than he had once predicted for himself.
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Source: Fightful — read the full story there.
