On Sunday night in Concord, North Carolina, 33-year old Slim J, a 17-year veteran of the indies, won the Premier Wrestling Xperience (PWX) PWX 16 tournament, as he begins a climb back into the discussion of indie veterans that deserve more attention. Slim J debuted in 2001 in the highly influential NWA Wildside promotion in Georgia (where WWE Superstar AJ Styles hails from), and it wasn’t soon before he was appearing in Ring of Honor in its earliest days, as part of the stable Special K alongside Angel Dust (aka Azrieal), Deranged (Illndigochild), Joey Matthews (former WWE Superstar Joey Mercury) and Izzy (Insane Dragon). An early pioneer of the high flying daredevil style that has since gone on to define the US indies of today, he also appeared on an early TNA/IMPACT PPV in 2002.
But somewhere along the way, Slim J fell through the cracks. While his peers would go on to careers with WWE, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), IMPACT and many others, Slim J remained in the smaller indies, spending the bulk of his 17 years with NWA Anarchy (since switched to Anarchy Wrestling), also in Georgia.
He continues to work the Southern indie circuit, such as ACTION Wrestling, Southern Fried Championship Wrestling (SFCW), and Pro Wrestling Freedom (PWF), and since 2015 has appeared in several dark matches for ROH again, competing as Gladiator Jeremiah. He recently took part in the latest ROH TV Tapings, in a 6-man tag match against the Shinobi Shadow Squad (Cheeseburger, Eli Isom & Ryan Nova).
If winning the PWX 16 doesn’t get his name back in circulation, perhaps the announcement made by Joey Janela on Monday will. On Monday night, Janela announced Slim J as the next competitor to appear at Joey Janela’s Spring Break 3, presented by Game Changer Wrestling (GCW), where he’ll fight on night one on Friday, April 5 over WrestleMania weekend. Hopefully getting himself onto one of WrestleMania week’s biggest “must see” cards will bring the career of Slim J back into the spotlight and, as Janela mentioned in his announcement, “be the next amazing comeback story of The Joey Janela series” like it did for the likes of PCO, Teddy Hart, and Glacier in previous ones.
https://twitter.com/JANELABABY/status/1087502349726375936
