TNA World Champion Leon Slater opened up about how his NXT appearances helped him reach the top of the promotion.
Slater recently appeared on Extreme Channel for an interview. Despite never signing with WWE, he said he took advantage of every opportunity there as if he were part of the roster.
“I built my way up, and I built my way up to the point within TNA that WWE reached out to us,” Slater said. “Obviously, everybody, if they could, would reach out to WWE and be like, ‘oh, like, I’ll show up this Tuesday,’ this and that. But unfortunately, that’s not how it works. They reach out to you, and, you know, I feel like for- again, for someone that doesn’t work there and that hasn’t ever signed a deal there, I feel like my run there was… as if I’d been working there for two or three years. You know what I mean?”
“I think the difference between me and a couple other people is that I used my opportunity there. I gained the platform, the exposure, countless lessons learned, and I’ve run them back to TNA. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be TNA world champion right now if it wasn’t for my time in NXT and those couple of times on the main roster as well, because like I said, those lessons have been invaluable.”
But Slater said he doesn’t see TNA as just a stepping stone to WWE. He heaped praise on TNA’s relationship with WWE, which he called a true partnership.
“So to anyone that thinks TNA is just the stepping stone, I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Slater said. “I think it is a true partnership where people from our side, from the TNA side, get to go over there and learn a complete style, and the same thing with the people from NXT that have come over to TNA in the past. They get to work with people like Nic Nemeth, like Matt and Jeff Hardy, like a Frankie Kazarian. You know, these guys that have been in the game 20, 25, 30, 35 years. You know what I mean? Which is, again, absolutely invaluable experience for wrestlers of any caliber. You know what I mean? So I think the partnership is a perfect word to describe what we’ve got going on with WWE right now, for sure.”
Since TNA and WWE officially announced their multi-year deal in January 2025, Slater has wrestled Je’Von Evans at Bound for Glory last year. He also teamed with Evans at Saturday Night’s Main Event featuring John Cena’s final match and challenged Oba Femi for the NXT Championship on New Year’s Evil.
In January, Slater answered Carmelo Hayes’ open challenge for the United States Championship on SmackDown in London.
Nic Nemeth, one of the veterans Slater named, was the opponent he beat at this year’s Bound for Glory at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida.
Slater will make his first defense of the TNA World title against Trey Miguel at Destination X on November 15. The show takes place at the Edmonton Expo Centre in Edmonton, Canada.