Roderick Strong

Christopher Lindsey aka Roderick Strong was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but relocated to Florida at a young age. Following a troubled childhood, Lindsey graduated from Riverview High School, where he played American football. He attended the University of South Florida on an academic scholarship. Lindsey majored in business for two years before dropping out. In the autumn of 1994. Lindsey’s father, a collegiate wrestler, began training as a wrestler under Jim Neidhart. After Lindsey attended several training sessions and met Harry Smith, a third generation wrestler, he decided to become a wrestler. Lindsey was also trained by his father, Neidhart and a number of other wrestlers in Tampa, Florida.

Roderick Strong debuted in 2000 as The Jester on the Floridian independent circuit for the RWA. Strong wrestled his first match for the Independent Professional Wrestling promotion, competing in a twenty-man cruiserweight Battle royal. He was initially one-third of a stable known as “Risk Factor” with The Kamikaze Kid and Kid Lethal before he formed a tag team with his trainee and kayfabe brother, Sedrick Strong. After IPW closed down in late 2003, Strong began working for NWA Florida, a promotion which had had a working relationship with IPW for two years. Strong defeated David Babylon for the Florida Unified Cruiserweight Championship on July 19, 2003, in St. Petersburg. While Strong was champion, the title was renamed the Florida Unified Junior Heavyweight Championship. In addition to wrestling for NWA Florida, Strong served as the head trainer of the territory’s wrestling school.

On January 13, 2005, Strong made a one-off appearance in World Wrestling Entertainment’s SmackDown episode, representing Tampa. In the episode, Strong was defeated by Kurt Angle in Angle’s “3-Minute Hometown Hero Challenge”. He then went on to represent in various other competitions all over the world and came back to WWE in 2016. 

Strong made his NXT debut on the October 19, 2016 episode of NXT as Austin Aries’ partner in the second Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament, defeating Otis Dozovic and Tucker Knight.  He started a fight with Bobby Roode in 2018 and lost. He afterwards got into a fight with the Undisputed Era. Strong took against Undisputed Era and Sanity with the help of AOP at TakeOver WarGames, where he was defeated. 

He collaborated with Pete Dunne in 2018 for the Dusty Rhodes Classic. He betrayed Dunne in the championship match, joined the Undisputed Era, and triumphed. Strong joined the stable for the following three years. Two times, Strong’s tag team won the NXT Tag Team Championship. He won the NXT North American Championship in 2019 by defeating Velveteen Dream. 

Kyle O’Rilley and Adam Cole started fighting when the group was broken up in 2021. Strong departed NXT because he was unable to choose a side. Several weeks later, Strong made a comeback with Diamond Mine. Strong defeated Kushida to win the WWE NXT Cruiserweight Championship in the ensuing months. He lost the championship to Carmello Hayes in 2022. Diamond Mine and Strong were last seen on NXT.