Roddy Vs. The World
Christopher Lindsey (born July 26, 1983) is an American professional wrestler originally from Eau Claire, WI as Roderick Strong. He debuted in the Florida independent scene in 2000, first making his name teaming with his "brother" Sedrick in the Independent Professional Wrestling promotion. He went on to Ring of Honor, where he would become the second Triple Crown Champion, holding the ROH World Heavyweight Title belt
once, the ROH World Tag Team Titles once with Austin Aries and the ROH World Television Title belt. He has also competed for TNA, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, Dragon Gate, MLW, Pro Wrestling NOAH, WWE NXT and many other independent promotions.
On April 26, 2023, Roderick made his debut for All Elite Wrestling and is currently signed with the promotion. On March 3rd, 2024, Roderick defeated Orange Cassidy at AEW Revolution to become the AEW International Champion.
Backbreaking Tropes:
- Always Second Best:
- He is reciprocal to Jay Briscoe's view of being a Worthy Opponent but not to Mark's, who he views as being the inferior brother destined for second place. This stems back to 2004, when ROH was in danger of going out of business, the Briscoes weren't there due to Mark being injured in a motorcycle accident and Jay willing to give up pro wrestling altogether if Mark couldn't continue with it.
- This seems to have carried over into NXT, where he's been in several high-profile feuds and title matches and continually comes up juuuuuuuuuust short.
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: Though Davey Richards would take exception to the notion Roderick Strong is a "badass", after his prolonged period as his lap boy.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Bobby Fish goaded him into trying to go move for move with Tomohiro Ishii at Honor Rising Japan. This proved to be unwise on Roddy's part.
- Body Guard Crush: His relationship with Jade Chung started with protecting her from her abusive stablemates in The Embassy. Then it moved onto dating.
- Bookends: He decided to help Tyler Black win the ROH World Title and he also took it away when Black decided to take it to WWE.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak: Has lost every War Games match in NXT until he finally won in 2020.
- The Brute: Of Generation Next during its start, when he was noticeably larger
- Butt-Monkey:
- In The Undisputed Era, he seems more prone to humiliation than the others. Not only does being the guy UE sends out when Adam Cole doesn't want to do a singles match (Fish and O'Reilly are skilled in their own right but typically work together), resulting in something of a Very Punchable Man status for the group, but it took him by far the longest out of the stable to win a title in his own right. And when they held all the titles in NXT, he is the first to lose his.
- He has competed in every War Games match in NXT to date, but has not won a single one. The only match Undisputed Era won, he had yet to become a member. Subverted at the 2020 edition of War Games, in which the group won.
- The Cameo: On SHIMMER Hot Summer Nights (Volume 14) unless you were there live and early enough to see his Dark Match FIP title defense.
- Combat by Champion: Sort of. Due to a (legit) injury suffered by Aries, their Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic match with TM-61 was re-booked into a singles match that pitted Strong against Thorne. Strong came out on the short end, and thus he and Aries were eliminated.
- Comically Missing the Point: Roderick Strong brought Adam Pearce into Decade to help Ta'Darius Thomas and Adam Page, but Pearce came to the conclusion the two simply lacked experience and that The Decade's real problems were Roddy's ego and BJ Whitmer having his own agenda. Strong just heard "ego" and "agenda" and figured Pearce was talking about The Addiction.
- Continuity Nod: While challenging for the World Junior Heavyweight Title at NWA Mid South's "Empire Strikes Back" the announcer said no matter the place it was always Roderick's ring of honor when he stepped through the ropes(though James J Dillon, of that very Empire had other ideas).
- Pete Dunne came back to NXT-America in 2019 and doesn't like any of the Undisputed Era because of his earlier brushes with them but continues to hold a special antipathy for Strong, who stabbed him in the back in the middle of a title match to join them.
- Crowd Chant: "Please Don't Talk!", especially during his No Remorse Corps run.
- The Dragon: Of Generation Next when Alex Shelley ran it.
- Dragon-in-Chief: The Undisputed Kingdom was created and led by Adam Cole. However, due to Adam shattering his ankle at Grand Slam 2023, he's been unable to wrestle, and his appearances are irregular. This results in Roderick often taking charge of the stable, especially when Adam's absent.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Was a lot bulkier with a much more "power" based style early in his career.
- Enemy Mine: With Austin Aries and Delirious, whom he was in the middle of blood feuds with at the time, to stop ROH World Champion Nigel McGuinness from running out of a title defense against Bryan Danielson.
- Every Year They Fizzle Out - Before he won the World Title at Glory By Honor IX, Strong was 0-15 in ROH World Title matches.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- In 2010 when he joined the House of Truth.
- In 2018, he turned on Pete Dunne to help The Undisputed Era retain their NXT Tag Team Championship, joining the group in the process.
- Fake Defector: When the Undisputed Era debuted in NXT, they asks Strong to join them, considering his and Adam Cole used to be a tag team back in PWG. When the Era attacked the Authors of Pain, Strong seemingly joined them only for him to attack them instead. It would not be until six months later that he joined them for real.
- Family Man: His first gimmick in NXT is this in a nutshell. So much so that when Bobby Roode implied that he was gonna sleep with Roddy's wife he started to beat Bobby up before security broke it up. It doesn't come up as much since joining The Undisputed Era. Incidentally, his real-life wife in Marina Shafir has since joined the company full-time as a member of Shayna Baszler's stable. Still, their relationship hadn't been brought up for a long time, even though the two characters as hangers-on to prominent heel champions are functionally very similar. Probably because no babyface on the roster could provoke him using Marina and still be the more sympathetic or admired character... until the time came for The Velveteen Dream's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Finishing Move: Sick Kick, Death by Roderick, Strong Hold, various backbreaker variations. In NWA Mid South the staff mentioned that during their research into Strong's history they determined he knew 837 different back breakers.
- Among his backbreakers finishers, the one he uses the most to finish matches is a suplex/Orange Crush backbreaker which he calls the "End of Heartache".
- Five Moves of Doom
- Four Moves Of Doom: Double knee gutbuster, Sick Kick, half nelson backbreaker or Gibson Driver and the Strong Hold. Sometimes he switches the order of the gutbuster and backbreaker.
- Three Moves Of Doom: His shorter more later combo consists of a knee lift to an incoming opponent, a roaring elbow and his End of Heartache suplex/Orange Crush backbreaker.
- For Your Own Good: Roderick Strong's reasoning for antagonizing Cedric Alexander was to make Cedric a better wrestler, or so he claimed, saying he was doing for him what Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson did for him and the rest of Generation Next.
- Foreign Wrestling Heel: Became such during Ring of Honor and New Japan's 2016 interactions, especially when defending the television title against Tomohiro Ishii. This didn't stop an "ROH" chant from breaking out though.
- Happily Married: to Marina Shafir in November 7, 2018.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Roderick Strong is well known for the power of his knife edge chops. They're the kinds of thing that would make Ric Flair or Pentagon Jr wince in pain. However, this is the sort of thing that goes both ways, and when Roddy Strong made a mistake of looking away from Willie Mack, well...
- Hostile Show Takeover: ROH Generation Next, May 22, 2004, started with them taking out the teams for the opening match, the Ring Crew Express (Dunn and Marcos), the Christopher Street Connection (Buff-E and MACE) and the Special K team of Izzy and Dixie, and generally making themselves as much the focus of attention as possible that night.
- Human Shield: Used the referee as one during his match with Uhaa Nation at EVOLE 34.
- Hypocrite: Him in decade attacking wrestlers for leaving ROH for larger promotions, despite having gone to TNA himself. Though to be fair, Roderick Strong's loyalty to Ring Of Honor is what got him kicked out of TNA.
- Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: How he defended his Face–Heel Turn on Pete Dunne. As he explained, Dunne was always going to put his U.K. title ahead of anything else and it was inevitable he'd turn on Strong so Strong just decided to do it first.
- Irony: After winning the TV title from Jay Lethal at Showdown in the Sun Day 2, he became the second ROH Triple Crown Champion. Lethal would go on to be the third ROH Triple Crown champion.
- Jobber: His first three years in TNA were this until the start of 2006, when they decided to put the three Generation Next founders they had back together under their own banner. While this only lasted a month before he and Aries were suspended, Strong was never demoted back to jobber whenever TNA did decide to book him following this.
- The Lancer: Of Generation Next after Austin Aries took over.
- Loophole Abuse: In his first singles match in AEW, Roderick challenged Chris Jericho to a no-holds barred match. Jericho, whom Adam Cole is feuding with and had assaulted him a week earlier, has Cole banned from the building; instead, in the last minute of the match, Strong took the fight outside of the arena where Cole is waiting for Chris.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Generation Next took their name from the Ring of Honor event they stormed.
- Maniac Tongue: Showing his obsession with Kyle O'Reilly in his quest to become PWG World Champion.
- Mean Boss: To Davey Richards in the No Remorse Corps, berating him and making him admit he "made" Davey's Full Impact Pro career, as well as acknowledge Strong turned the FIP Heavyweight belt into a World title.
- Mr. Fanservice: After he won the NXT North American Championship, he take a nude pictures with the North American title.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: On the receiving end of one from World Champion Takeshi Morishima in the main event of ROH Domination that went on for over thirteen minutes.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Roddy is not "pint sized" at 5'10, but is incredibly lean and doesn't have a lot of size to him. That doesn't matter, he is stronger than he looks and can still ragdoll guys around like they're nothing.
- Power Stable:
- (in IPW): Risk Factor
- (in ROH): Generation Next, the House of Truth, The Decade
- (in Dragon Gate): Blood Generation
- Defied by Samoa Joe who put an end to Christopher Daniels's Ministry before it really had a chance to begin. Strong would have been a member though.
- (In Pro Wrestling Guerilla): Mount Rushmore 2.0
- (In NXT): The Undisputed Era and Diamond Mine (the latter serving as The Centerpiece).
- Power Trio
- The Dojo Bros in PWX with Adam Cole and Eddie Edwards.
- The No Remorse Corps with Rocky Romero and Davey Richards.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Was first brought into NXT as Austin Aries' tag team partner. This was not his debut as Austin Aries' tag team partner.
- Red Baron: "The Messiah of the Backbreaker." Also doubles as Names to Run Away from Really Fast, that is unless your own name is Cedric Alexander
- The Resenter
- Towards Kevin Steen, who continued to be cheered despite repeatedly burying Ring Of Honor and helping S.C.U.M. in their efforts to destroy it.
- Toward Pro Wrestling Guerilla in general, when he realized they were using him to test new comers to the promotion and never had any interest in giving him a shot for the title.
- The Rival
- The American Wolves and The Briscoe Brothers in Ring Of Honor and Full Impact Pro have been on his case for a long time, also, his former protege Erick Stevens...
- As part of Generation Next, The Kings Of Wrestling. After Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero beat him and Austin Aries for the ROH Tag Team Titles, Matt Sydal won them back with Christopher Daniels (Daniels wasn't a member of the group, but still)
- Also, the Second City Saints after Generation Next targeted Ricky Steamboat, who until then had been in conflict with CM Punk.
- Generation Next's chief rivals were Prince Nana's Embassy, at least after they booted Alex Shelley from the group and then beat him down despite Shelley's attempts to atone for his past transgressions, causing Shelley to join the Embassy against Generation Next.
- Schmuck Bait: Roderick swallowed it hook line and sinker. His match against Cedric Alexander may been billed as "The Battle Of The Backbreakers" but there was no rule about having to win with the move, the finish being Alexander's small package.
- Shout-Out: The name for his The End of Heartache finisher comes from Killswitch Engage's song "The End of Heartache", which he also used as an entrance theme for a time.
- Signature Move: Well, he's not called "the Messiah of the Backbreaker" just because it sounds awesome.
- So Last Season: Adds new finishers on what seems to be a yearly basis and tends to change his main finisher a lot (which makes a lot of sense from a kayfabe standpoint).
- Spiteful Spit: He and Alex Shelley exchanged them at ROH Nowhere To Run in 2005.
- The Starscream: He, Aries and Jack Evans all ousted Alex Shelley from Generation Next for refusing to resign as leader. Then he formed the No Remorse Corps after he and Davey Richards attacked Austin Aries.
- Suplex Finisher: His Orange Crush backbreaker, The End of Heartache.
- Tag Team
- The Strong Brothers
- Primarily teamed with Austin Aries in Generation Next, and is doing so again in NXT for the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. Since joining The Undisputed Era, he's most frequently tagged with Kyle O'Reilly.
- Teeny Weenie: If The Velveteen Dream is to be believed. Complete with Titantron slideshow. Strong was not happy.
- Third Movie Goes To Asia: He and Austin Aries took the ROH Tag Team Titles to Dragon Gate in Japan to make them the ROH World Tag Team Titles and hopefully upgrade them to main events status, which they did. Strong was incidentally also the third Full Impact Pro Heavyweight Champion and declared world status at an ROH event in the UK.
- Tournament Arc
- He won ROH Survival of the Fittest 2005. Which is more so a series of qualifying matches to a mass elimination match than a knockoff or round Robbin but was originally a continuation of Maryland Championship Wrestling's Shane Shamrock Memorial Cup. In that final he outlasted Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Jay Lethal, Colt Cabana and Austin Aries.
- He is the only wrestler to ever win PWG's Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament with two different partners, winning it with PAC in 2007 and with Jack Evans in 2008.
- Troll: At Supercard Of Honor X he imitated Moose's fist pump while doing an Ole Kick and slapped Bobby Fish, who was at the commentary table, in the back of the head, all in one go.
- Undying Loyalty: To ROH, hence his membership in Decade. Strong even gave up his TNA career to continue wrestling for ROH.
- Villain Team-Up: Before what was supposed to be a Six Man Mayhem match at the 2/23/2007 ROH show Castagnoli, Roderick Strong and Shingo conspired to isolate and beat the hell out of rookie Pelle Primeau. This plan fell apart when Austin Aries ran out against Strong in revenge for the No Remorse Corps attacking him and Sydal after an Open The Brave Gate defense earlier in the night, leaving Strong a non factor for the rest of the night.
- Villainous Valor: Even though he was a part of The House Of Truth and the television champion, he demanded there be no time limit during his match with Fit Finlay at Boarder Wars in 2012.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: He and former Generation Next stablemate Austin Aries have gone back and forth between both teaming and feuding.
- We Used to Be Friends: AJ Styles was one of Generation Next's biggest allies, but then came The Decade and "Mr. TNA" was basically the living embodiment of everything they stood against before he went to New Japan and became the International Grand Prix Heavyweight Champion.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: During his match against Moose at Super Card Of Honor X, he crawled on his hands and knees out of the ring to the commentary table where Bobby Fish was sitting, then pushed a pursuing Moose's boot into Fish.
- Wrestling Psychology: He can tell a good story when paired with the right wrestler and especially if he's playing face, but he tends to wrestle the same way, whether he's a face or a heel and many of his matches degenerate into spotfests.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Austin Aries suffered a knee injury that prevented him and Strong from beating Sydal and Daniels for the World Tag Team titles, Strong attacked Aries and formed the No Remorse Corps with Davey Richards.
