{"id":41501,"date":"2019-03-18T15:41:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T19:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=41501"},"modified":"2019-03-18T15:41:51","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T19:41:51","slug":"report-former-impact-star-dj-z-signs-with-wwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/03\/18\/report-former-impact-star-dj-z-signs-with-wwe\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Former IMPACT Star DJ Z Signs With WWE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwinsider.com\/article\/124945\/wwe-signs-former-impact-wrestling-xdivision-champion.html?p=1\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">According to a report from <strong>Mike Johnson<\/strong> of<strong> PWInsider<\/strong><\/a>, former 2x IMPACT X-Division Champion <strong>DJ Z<\/strong> has signed with the WWE. The 15-year veteran is best remembered for his seven year stint with <strong>TNA\/IMPACT Wrestling<\/strong>, from 2011 until his departure at the end of 2018.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41506\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/03\/DQ8-hJ1W0AEMNMK-e1552938005725.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"432\" height=\"500\"><\/p>\n<p>DJ Z first began training to become a pro wrestler in Pittsburgh in 2003, before debuting for <strong>Black Diamond Wrestling<\/strong> as<strong> Shiima Xion<\/strong>. It wasn&#8217;t long before he became a regular one of Pennsylvania&#8217;s top indie promotions, <strong>International Wrestling Cartel (IWC)<\/strong>, that same year, where he has competed for the duration of his entire 15-year career. He&#8217;s a former 2x IWC Super Indy Champion, 2x IWC World Heavyweight Champion and 2x IWC Tag Team Champion.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IWC Video Archive: Jerry Lynn vs. Shiima Xion\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F75eHO_Z64g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2005, he entered the <strong>CHIKARA<\/strong> Young Lions Cup, which granted him further exposure, as he began to work more Midwest and East Coast promotions like Ohio&#8217;s <strong>Absolute Intense Wrestling (AIW)<\/strong>, <strong>Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW)<\/strong>, Chicago&#8217;s <strong>All American Wrestling (AAW)<\/strong> and <strong>Dragon Gate USA<\/strong>, as well as international stints with <strong>AAA<\/strong>\u00a0and <strong>Desastre Total Ultraviolento (DTU)<\/strong> in Mexico and <strong>DDT Pro<\/strong> in Japan. In 2009, he made the semi-finals of the <em><strong>CZW Best of the Best<\/strong><\/em> tournament.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Joaquin Wilde vs Sammy Guevara\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SS-063At5GM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2011, he debuted with IMPACT (then TNA) as <strong>Zema Ion<\/strong>, and within his first year was X-Division Champion. His athleticism and aerialist moves fit in perfectly with IMPACT&#8217;s X-Division and he was featured regularly. In 2014, he adopted a DJ gimmick, changing his name to DJ Z and becoming the personal DJ for the <strong>BroMans<\/strong> (Robbie E. &amp; Jesse Godderz), with the group working in trios matches as well. Coincidentally, his former BroMans teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2019\/03\/11\/stokely-hathaway-robbe-e-and-cal-bloom-join-wwe-performance-center\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robbie E signed with the WWE earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A magical moment last night as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iamdjz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@IAmDJZ<\/a> entered an IWC ring for the final time! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kIiBDnFgUq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/kIiBDnFgUq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; IWC Wrestling (@IWCwrestling) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IWCwrestling\/status\/1107414165621276674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 17, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In early 2018, he formed a new tag team, <strong>Z &amp; E<\/strong>, with <strong>Andrew Everett<\/strong>, who captured the IMPACT World Tag Team titles, but the tandem was short lived. Later that summer, Andrew Everett left IMPACT, followed by year&#8217;s end by DJ Z himself. Last year, he made his first appearance in <strong>Pro Wrestling Guerrilla<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Battle of Los Angeles<\/strong> tournament, and is the current reigning AAW Heritage Champion. This past weekend, he had his farewell match with IWC, which seems to indicate that the reports of him signing are most likely true.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A magical moment last night as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/iamdjz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@IAmDJZ<\/a> entered an IWC ring for the final time! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kIiBDnFgUq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/kIiBDnFgUq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; IWC Wrestling (@IWCwrestling) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IWCwrestling\/status\/1107414165621276674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 17, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a report from Mike Johnson of PWInsider, former 2x IMPACT X-Division Champion DJ Z has signed with the WWE. The 15-year veteran is best remembered for his seven year stint with TNA\/IMPACT Wrestling, from 2011 until his departure at the end of 2018. DJ Z first began training to become a pro wrestler [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":41505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,3],"tags":[1843],"class_list":["post-41501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-dj-z"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}