AEW Star Jay Lethal On His Favorite Legends To Work With (Besides Ric Flair)

Jay Lethal has had the opportunity to work with several wrestling legends in his career, including a memorable 2010 feud with "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair in TNA Wrestling. During a recent virtual signing with Highspots, Lethal was asked to recall some other icons he particularly enjoyed working with.

"It'd be a tie between Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat, because I was just in his last match, and Tatanka," Lethal said. "At [TNA] Wrestling, when I started the Machismo character, they had me fight some of the older legends. I fought Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart. When I wrestled Tatanka, true story, I wrestled Tatanka, and he, on television, beat my ass. I had not been hit, forearmed, punched, chopped as hard, even almost to this day, as hard as anybody has ever hit me than Tatanka did back then. I know it was just a short match, but Tatanka, he was like, 'Maybe if we do this well, we can get a program out of it, a good run.' In my head, I'm thinking, 'This is just a one-time deal, buddy.' He beat the crap out of me."

Lethal's matches with Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart and Tatanka occurred in late 2009, in the wake of Hulk Hogan signing with TNA Wrestling. Following Hogan's arrival, Lethal began laying out open challenges for other legends to square off with him. Neidhart was the first to answer the call, defeating Lethal on the November 12, 2009 episode of "TNA Impact." The next month, Tatanka stepped up to face Lethal in another televised match.

The aforementioned bout with Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat is much more recent, having taken place at Big Time Wrestling's "Return of the Dragon" event in November 2022. There, Lethal teamed with Nick Aldis and Brock Anderson in a battle against Steamboat and FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler).

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Highspots with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.