Jamar Shipman was born in 1985 in New Jersey but he is better known as Jay Lethal, a TNA superstar. After winning a contest where he won six months of free training, Jay began to train with former ECW Champion Mikey Whipwreck and was in his first match in December 2001 in Jersey All Pro Wrestling. He won the JAPW Television title and the Light Heavyweight Championship in his first three years and had lengthy title reigns. He went onto win the JAPW Heavyweight Championship in a four way match in May 2005. He later became Tag Team champion in JAPW

It was around this time that Lethal was also in Ring of Honor as Hydro and later changed his name to Jay Lethal and he was engaged in feuds with names such as CM Punk, Alex Shelley and others. While in ROH, he won the ROH Pure Championship from John Waters in 2005. He lost the title to Samoa Joe and began competing for the ROH World Title but was unsuccessful at every turn to win the belt. 

Lethal then signed with TNA Wrestling and in his debut match, he lost to Samoa Joe in December 2005. He won his first match by winning a four-way match at the Against All Odds pay-per-view. He wrestled several time for the X-Division title but was unsucessful in winning the title. Jay Lethal then changed his persona to mimic "'Macho Man" Randy Savage and Lethal became "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal. After this change, Lethal finally won his X-Division title but less than a week later, he lost the title to Samoa Joe. He would end up winning the X-Division title bakc from Kurt Angle, who at the time owned all the belts at the time.

He lost the belt to Johnny Devine who aligned with Team 3D at the time but Lethal won back his title but was blindsided by Petey Williams who cashed in his title shot and Lethal lost the title once again. It was around this time where Lethal would begin teaming up with Consequences Creed and they won the TNA Tag Team titles from Beer Money Inc. but only held the belts for a few days unil Beer Money won them back.