Chris Lindsey

Chris Lindsey is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Roderick Strong. He is currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment, appearing with their developmental territory NXT. He earned an American football scholarship to the University of South Florida, where he majored in Business for two years before postponing his academic career. In the autumn of 1994, Lindsey's father, a former collegiate wrestler, began training as a wrestler under Jim Neidhart. After Lindsey attended several training sessions and met Harry Smith, a second generation wrestler, he decided to become a wrestler. Lindsey was trained by Neidhart and a number of other wrestlers in Tampa, Florida and debuted in 2001 as Roderick Strong on the Floridia independent circuit. After Sedrick cost the Strong Brothers a number of matches, Roderick turned heel on February 8, 2003, betraying Sedrick and aligning himself with the Alliance of Defiance, a dominant heel stable. Authors of Pain, The Undisputed Era attacked both teams which backfired leading to a triple threat match being made for NXT TakeOver: New Orleans with the trophy and Tag Team Championship on the line as well. At the event just as Dunne was gonna pin O'Reilly to win, Strong attacked Dune and hit him with the end of heartache and placed O'Reilly on top for the win turning heel for the first time in his career and joining the undisputed era. The following day at WresleMania Access, Strong with O'Reilly defended the titles making him a champion under the Freebird rule. At the Greatest Royal Rumble, Strong competed in the namesake match, entering at #34 and eliminating Rhyno before being eliminated by Baron Corbin.