Leon Slater Shares How & When He Found Out That He’d Be Wrestling at John Cena’s Retirement Show,

TNA World Champion Leon Slater recently recalled how he found that he’d be competing at the John Cena retirement show last December.

Last winter, Slater formed an alliance with then-NXT star Je’Von Evans. At Saturday Night’s Main Event, the show where Cena wrestled his farewell match, in Washington, D.C., Leon and Je’Von would team up to take on then-World Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Dragon Lee in a non-title bout.

During a recent appearance on The Extreme Channel, Leon Slater reflected on finding out that he would be competing at the historic event and his experience. Here’s what he said:

Leon Slater on how he found out that he would be wrestling at John Cena’s retirement show

“I try my best not to have those moments until after the matches, because I feel like if I have these things where I make the event and I make the match this super big life, monumental changing thing, then I get nervous. When I’m nervous, I feel like I can’t perform to the level I need to. So when I found out, I remember, like, I kind of had inklings because when I was doing that little NXT run, I never really knew where I was coming and going. Obviously, I’m still living home here in the UK, so it’d be a case of going out for a TNA loop and then getting the call from Orlando and being like, ‘Oh, hey, we need you down here for two or three weeks,’ and then the two or three weeks would run up and like, ‘Oh, no, like, you’re gonna be with us another two/three weeks,’ so it was one of those times where I think I had a RevPro show or something like that booked on the same day or the day before, and there was a gap in my schedule between TNA and NXT.

“So, I was asking him, like, ‘Oh, cool, like, I’ll go home here then yeah,’ and Melissa, the travel lady at NXT, she goes to me, ‘No, no, you’ll be in DC that weekend,’ and I go like, ‘Alright, cool,’ and I didn’t really think of it, and as I walked off, I was like, ‘What’s going on in DC this weekend?’ Then I realized, I was like, ‘Oh my God!’”

On his experience at the show

“And then as the talks carried on and it got made official, it started to set into reality, and then, you know, the weekend itself was just incredible. I got to have a lot of my friends there. I got to meet a lot of my childhood heroes, and like I’ve said before, it really was a dream that day. It was incredible!”

Listen to his comments below:

Slater has since gone from strength to strength. Last month, at Bound for Glory, he defeated Nic Nemeth to become the youngest-ever TNA World Champion in history. He is scheduled to defend his gold against Trey Miguel at Destination X.

Please credit The Extreme Channel and give an H/T to 411Mania for the transcription if you take quotes from this article.