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Leon Slater will take part in one of the biggest matches of his young professional wrestling career on Thursday night as he prepares to defend the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) X Division Championship against Cedric Alexander.
If Slater beats Alexander, he will cement himself as the longest reigning Division X champion and pass Austin Aries for the record. Aries held the title for 298 days starting in September 2011 and only relinquished it for a shot at the TNA World Championship.
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Leon Slater walks to the ring during SmackDown at the OVO Arena Wembley in London on January 16, 2026. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE)
Fellow TNA player AJ Francis is hoping Slater gets the win against Alexander. He said he wanted to take the title away from his height as he proclaimed to be the “biggest heel” in the company.
“I hope Leon wins because the person who should take the X Division title away from Leon is me. I’m the biggest heel in TNA,” Francis told PK Press Club Digital. “I’m definitely the biggest heel in wrestling. I’m such a big heel that there’s this whole initiative where there was a streamer who was excited to see me on Reality of Wrestling on a show and it became, like, a thing where, ‘There was no way this guy would be that excited to see AJ’ Wow. Like, I’m such a heel that you hate me so much that someone else can’t appreciate me being there. No one else in this business doesn’t get booed like me.
“I mean, for real, if we call a spade a spade, who else in the wrestling business gets booed? The top heels, the guys who are supposed to be the top heels, the MJF, the Dominik Mysterios, those guys, they get cheered. The fans cheer for them when they come out. Who really gets booed in today’s business, besides me? Me and Logan Paul, literally. And then you have Joe Hendry who comes from do a remix of the same song he did for me two years ago that’s about Logan Paul. And everyone says, ‘That’s so cool.’
AJ Francis visits SiriusXM on Radio Row at Super Bowl LX in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2026. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
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Francis added that there would be no one better to take the Division X title from Slater, adding that he was stripped of the title in his previous match against Slater.
“So who would be better placed than me to take that X division title away from Leon Slater? Who would have a better reaction than me to take that X division away from Leon Slater? And also, by the way, in the one match I had against Leon Slater for the X division title, I was cheated by the BDE, Rich Swann and the referee,” he said.
Francis then probed the critics and naysayers who apparently lined up to harm him.
AJ Francis visits SiriusXM on Radio Row at Super Bowl LX in San Francisco, California on February 5, 2026. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
“These are facts. You see, that’s the problem, I come here and I talk about facts and people get mad at me because I talk about facts,” he told PK Press Club Digital. “Because in this wrestling business there are plenty of these cowards who are only tough in interviews and only behind a TV screen and they’re not tough in real life. They don’t want you to say things that are facts that could be ‘misconstrued’ as an attempt to ‘get angry’ or ‘trying to do business for yourself’. I’m in business for myself. I’ve been in business for myself.
“I was in business for myself when everyone told me I was worthless 2 1/2 years ago. I was in business for myself then. So why do I pretend I’m not in business for myself now? I think if you don’t appreciate the things that I bring to the table as the best big man in the business, as the best heel in the business, personally, I feel like, ‘Fuck.’ And if you have a problem with me saying that, that’s your problem. I can go out of my way to not disrespect anyone. I’m not going out of my way to denigrate anyone. It’s always other people who want to start with me. The problem is, they bring a knife to a shootout and they get angry when they get applauded.”
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Francis will face KC Navarro in a SacTown Street Fight on “Impact” in Sacramento, California. The show can be watched live on AMC at 9 p.m. ET.
