In the world of professional wrestling, the old wisdom is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The reason why so many wrestlers have espoused the DDT as a part of their repertoires is because of the degree to which Jake Roberts got the move over. Every rich guy heel is, to some degree, paying homage to The Million Dollar Man gimmick Ted Dibiase used to play a perfect foil for Hulk Hogan. All heel authority figures try—with varying degrees of success—to have a little Vince McMahon in them. There are more overt impersonations and parodies, though, which don’t tend to be as successful, if only because they box wrestlers into only being a lesser version of an existing act. While that may, technically have been true of Jay Lethal’s Black Machismo work in Impact Wrestling—inspired by The Macho Man Randy Savage—it nonetheless also reflected a real bright point and breakthrough for Lethal as a wrestling star.

Black Machismo Was The Essence Of Transforming A Great Worker Into A Character

Jay Lethal Before And During Black Machismo Gimmick

In the early years of Jay Lethal’s career, his main claim to fame was that he was a bit of a prodigy. He got started wrestling as a teenager, and it was a big deal when he started appearing for TNA at just twenty years of age. Unfortunately, being young and quite good in the ring became Lethal’s character to the extent he had one at all for his first year on the roster.

Doing a Randy Savage impersonation and, before long, dressing up as Black Machismo gave Lethal an actual gimmick. For as silly as it may have been, there was a way then for fans to remember Lethal, and a character eccentric enough for TNA fans to make mention of to friends who didn’t always follow the product.

Jay Lethal’s Macho Man Impersonation Was Actually Quite Good

Macho Man Randy Savage And Black Machismo Jay Lethal In Blue

The Black Machismo gimmick never would have worked were Jay Lethal not very good at impersonating Randy Savage. As Eric Bischoff has discussed on his 83 Weeks podcast, it’s relatively easy to imitate The Macho Man’s voice, and so Lethal doing so may have had a certain sense of relatability to it. Nonetheless, Lethal took it to the next level in not only nailing the voice, but also physical mannerisms and Savage’s wrestling style.

Related: WWE Totally Wasted Randy Savage In 1993This all paved the way for fans to enjoy Lethal’s act beyond a one-off joke, but a gateway to a fun Miss Elizabeth-inspired angle with SoCal Val, and to interact with Hulk Hogan when he arrived in TNA, as if the two had been partners in the past.

Jay Lethal Didn’t Get Too Boxed Into The Gimmick

Jay Lethal ROH Champion

One of the limitations of an impersonator gimmick is that talents to tend feel restricted to what the act that came before them did. There may be no starker examples than the fake Diesel and Razor Ramon characters WWE tried on for size after real life friends Kevin Nash and Scott Hall had defected to WCW. Glenn Jacobs in particular was highly talented, but didn’t get much chance to show it until he’d removed the shackles of parroting Nash’s style in favor of becoming his own man as Kane.

Not so dissimilarly, the Meta Powers act Curtis Axel and Damien Sandow put on, imitating Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, was fun while it lasted but had a low ceiling over it. By contrast, Jay Lethal used the Black Machismo gimmick to distinguish and elevate himself without being swallowed up by it. He wound up graduating to bigger and better things, including becoming one of the most decorated stars in ROH history.

Black Machismo Was A Fit For The TNA Stage

Jay Lethal Black Machismo

Jay Lethal’s Black Machismo gimmick may have been a tough sell in WWE or even AEW for its comedic underpinnings and derivative foundation. However, in TNA the character had a chance to breathe, coexisting in a space where Shark Boy called forth the spirit of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and where Christopher Daniels could let his eccentric side out as The Curry Man.

The brighter the spotlight, the more scrutiny an angle tends to get. Lethal hit a sweet spot with a genuinely engaging impersonator gimmick in front of a relatively small, devoted fan base that was ready to eat it up.

Jay Lethal is a talented wrestler, and fortunately had the opportunity to shine as a top star of Ring of Honor before his current run in AEW. His work as Black Machismo helped get him noticed and allowed him to develop his skills as a character en route to these more properly distinguished chapters of his career.