Leon Ruff Wants To Inspire The Masses Like Miles Morales’ Spider-Man Inspired Him

As Leon Ruff prepares to enter his first NXT North American Championship defense at a TakeOver he is reminded that with great power comes great responsibility.

Leon Ruff, a former EVOLVE star, captured the NXT North American Championship from Johnny Gargano on a recent episode of NXT and ever since that moment, he has been trying to validate his championship reign by proving that he is not a joke. Leon Ruff will further attempt to prove his point at NXT TakeOver: WarGames when he defends his title against Johnny Gargano and Damian Priest.

Speaking with Metro, Ruff explained that he wants to inspire children much in the way that Miles Morales, the successor to Peter Parker as Spider-Man in the Marvel comic books, inspired him. 

“I remember the scene [from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse] where Miles jumped off the building, that leap – that’s how I felt,’ he beamed. ‘I’m getting emotional. ‘That’s how I felt when I left my job to come and do wrestling. I felt like I was jumping off the building, and it felt like I was falling but I was flying. The way that made me feel watching that movie, I can only imagine how kids growing up who have all these outlets of diverse characters – I can only imagine what they’ll feel growing up. I’ve always wanted to inspire people, and I wanted to do it through wrestling,” he insisted. “[But] I would definitely love to play Spider-Man!”

Ruff simply wants people to know his story and continue to try and their everyday lives because just like him, they may come up with a surprise victory.

“That’s my main thing. I hope that this win makes people feel like, man, ‘he was just getting beat up and thrown around.’ People can feel like that about their whole life. Then I get one win, and it’s the biggest win, the win that I needed. I want people to just try!”

Fightful wil have live play-by-play coverage of NXT TakeOver: WarGames.