Leon Slater Names Match With Speedball Mike Bailey As The Turning Point Of His Rise In TNA

Leon Slater looks back on the turning point of his TNA career.

In October 2024, Leon Slater challenged for the TNA X-Division championship while ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey held the gold. The pair would have a back and forth memorable match, but in the end, Slater would come up short in the bout with Bailey, and would have to wait till TNA Slammiversary this year in order to capture the championship.

While speaking to Wrestling Rewind in a new interview, Slater was asked what was the turning point before his rise in TNA.

“That’s a real good question, man. I think there’s arguably a couple of points where you could kind of say it turned around. Maybe the earliest point, though, was my match against Speedball Mike Bailey last October, I think it was. I think that was my first or second… I think it was my first. It was my first shot at the X Division Championship and we tore the house down, man. You know what I mean? Like we had a killer match.  I think up until that point, I’d been like, yeah, the young kid on the roster, like he- like he can do some cool stuff. Yeah, he might be good one day. Then at least from where I’ve, where I’ve kind of experienced it and seen it after that Speedball match, people started to take me a little bit more seriously.”

Elsewhere in another recent interview, Slater noted that AJ Styles has yet to pass the torch to him as they haven’t wrestled each other yet. You can read more about that here.

Elsewhere in  yet another recent interview, Slater spoke about how long conversations have been happening surrounding him winning the X-Division Championship. You can read more about that here.

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