Ring of Honor is on the precipice of the biggest show in the promotion's history, at Madison Square Garden, as it joins forces with New Japan Pro Wrestling for G1 Supercard on April 6.

By the time Ring of Honor world champion Jay Lethal enters a sold-out MSG, he will have spent 707 days of his career -- almost two full years -- with that title around his waist. That's longer than Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan, Adam Cole, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Roderick Strong, Nigel McGuinness, CM Punk or anyone else who has ever held that championship.

Lethal will defend that title against Marty Scurll and Matt Taven in a triple-threat ladder match at the "World's Most Famous Arena" in the first non-WWE wrestling show held at the venerated venue in half a century.

It'll be a dramatic night and debut for Lethal, who has been a lot of places over the course of his 17-plus-year wrestling career, but not MSG. He began in a ring made of mattresses in a backyard, and then to a tiny, boiling-hot charity bingo hall in Bayonne, New Jersey. Lethal made a major step forward as part of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, making a soundstage at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, his primary home, but he's defined himself as one of the key figures in ROH history at venues such as the Hammerstein Ballroom, just one block away from MSG.

If you ask him, it took every one of those stops (and many others) to get Lethal to this point. That and an old Plymouth van, a $500 camcorder, and the bond that carried him every step of the way.

This is the story of how a shy kid from Elizabeth, New Jersey, found himself in a main event at Madison Square Garden during the biggest weekend of the year in pro wrestling.

The beginning

RONALD SHIPMAN (Lethal's father): I have six children -- four boys, two girls (Jay falls in the middle). I used to take them to restaurants so they could know how to sit down and eat, because at home they used to just run around and play. I had heard they used to go in the basement and fight.

JAY LETHAL: There's a story in my house of my grandpa hurting my oldest brother because they were in the living room wrestling. My family's always loved wrestling. I think my love for wrestling started because my older brothers loved it. I can remember sitting with my older brothers and we'd watch X-Men first, and then wrestling would come on.

Shipman: We used to watch wrestling on TV when you had the Junkyard Dog, and he was into it. He'd watch it, no talking or nothing.

Lethal: I think it had something to do with me just wanting to do what my older brothers did. Once I got older, somewhere along the way my love for it kept growing and theirs started to fade out.

Shipman: Pretty much, like, 16 years old, he started going to wrestling shows with his friends -- that's when I knew he was into wrestling. He even had a wrestling belt. Then one day he asked me, "Dad, can I use your camcorder?" I paid about $500 for that camcorder. I told him, "You can't use that." And then he said, "My friend's father, he let him use his." I couldn't say anything about that, so I said, "All right, take it." At this time, they were having their own shows in this backyard schoolyard with mattresses. I didn't know they were doing that until I saw the tape. I saw one of the kids had Jamar (Jay) upside down and I said, "You let him hold you upside down like that?" And then he says, "Well, I held him upside down, too". So what could I do?

Lethal: My dad was at my very first wrestling match [for Jersey All Pro Wrestling] in a little charity bingo hall in Bayonne, New Jersey, which is now actually a liquor store. Not all my family went to my very first match, [but] he sat in the back of every practice when I was training to be a wrestler. Every practice session that I had, he sat in the back with a video camera and recorded.

Shipman: My reaction [to his first match] was, "This is great," but he was taking a beating for nothing. I was pissed off that he was taking a beating for nothing. But [the] look on his face, the smile and grin on his face, he was so happy that he's doing his dream that I couldn't say anything about it. I liked it after a while.

Lethal: For the first six years of my career, he was my personal chauffeur to all my shows. Every indie show, every Ring of Honor show, whether it was a two-hour drive or a 16-hour drive. He wanted to go to all my shows with me.

Shipman: I knew that I had to be there. I wanted to be there. I told his mother, "I don't care where he's wrestling, we're gonna be there." He was serious. When it was time to leave to Connecticut, Boston -- it was long trips, but we came home the same night. It was fun. That was our weekend getaway. All the kids in the van, thank God the van didn't break down. One time we got stranded on a road, the tire went flat and the wrench to take the wheel off wouldn't fit. We had to call a tow truck. We were going to Cleveland, but we made it just in time. We had a good time.

Lethal: Dan Maff, who had me under his wing, one day pulled me aside and said, "There's this little group faction, Special K, with smaller cruiserweight guys in Ring of Honor, I think you would be a good fit. I could talk to them for you if you want to." Of course, who would turn that down? Next thing I knew, he said, "Hey, come to this Ring of Honor show."

When I was first [at ROH], I really didn't feel like I fit in because I was so inexperienced. I was only wrestling for a year and a half and I was wrestling CM Punk and Samoa Joe and Bryan Danielson? After a year and a half? That's incredible. Like, that's insane. I really feel like someone messed up and led me here by mistake. Being in the ring with so many people I can learn from, I couldn't have asked for a better learning experience for someone who had only been wrestling for about a year and a half.

Far from home

After three years of wrestling for ROH without a formal contract, traveling the road with his dad in the driver's seat, Lethal signed with TNA (now Impact Wrestling) in late 2005. His up-and-down six-year stint with TNA featured a number of career highlights and opportunities for exposure on worldwide TV, including six reigns as X Division champion and a tag-team title win with the man who'd eventually be known as Xavier Woods. But the moments that fans tend to remember most were his run as "Black Machismo," a character who shamelessly utilized many of the mannerisms and moves of "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and a few memorable face-to-face encounters Lethal had with his idol, the "Nature Boy," Ric Flair.

Lethal: I had a match with Samoa Joe in Ring of Honor and [then-TNA producer, now-WWE employee] Jeremy Borash was there. He said, "Hey, Joe is on Impact doing his thing and you just had a good match with him. Would you like to come in and do that as well?" I said, "Hell yeah."

Shipman: When he started wrestling far from home they would fly him -- I missed [him, now] that he had to fly and we couldn't take him anymore. Trips were over. But I was getting a little tired back then because we were driving everywhere.

Lethal: I'm one of the first people to admit and realize that what put me on the map, really, was that "Black Machismo" character. That's what really made people learn my name. I look back at that and say, "Thank God those things happened," because it gave me a chance to do everything I'm doing now and it helped me. I learned in-ring wrestling from Kurt Angle. In fact, I got to wrestle Jeff Hardy. I wrestled Sting.

I wrestled with my idol, Ric Flair. [We did] promos back and forth -- I learned promos from Ric Flair. [I remember] cutting a promo with Ric Flair and being so nervous -- now I cut promos and it's not a nervous thing at all. When I really think about it, everything I got to do in Impact Wrestling was to prepare me for this role I was going to be taking in Ring of Honor.

Shipman: Acting like Ric Flair, wrestling Kurt Angle -- those are things that you can't take away.

Lethal: When Impact Wrestling finally said, "OK, we're not going to renew your contract and we're gonna have to let you go," it was my first taste of failure in wrestling. I had been so lucky and so fortunate. Up until then I had an amazing ride of no one ever saying no. Once Impact let me go, it was the first real blow that I ever sustained in wrestling. It was a very sad time for me.

Shipman: Jamar is a wrestler. If he's wrestling, he's happy. If he's sitting there and you're not using him, he's not gonna be happy. He wants to wrestle. That's what I know about my son.

Lethal: Of course, every wrestler, if they get let go from a company and then sign to another one, they're out to show the other company that let them go how big of a mistake they made. I'd be lying if I didn't say that some of what I do and my motivation is due to a company that I wanted to work for letting me go so I can prove to them.

Jay Lethal, right, has been one of the pillars of Ring of Honor since returning to the company full time in 2011 -- evident in showcase matches like this 2015 ROH main event in which he tagged with Shinsuke Nakamura against Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish. Ring of Honor

Best in the world

After being let go by Impact Wrestling in 2011, Lethal decided it was time to return full time to ROH. He spent the next few years reshaping his career as one of the most well-respected performers in the company's history, including an ROH TV title run of 567 consecutive days. Lethal still held that title in June 2015 when he faced off in a title vs. title match against ROH world champion Jay Briscoe. After a nearly 30-minute bout, Lethal won his first ROH world championship, 12 years after debuting with the company.

Lethal: For me when I felt, "Wow, this is big," is when Ring of Honor put not only the Ring of Honor Television championship on me, but they also at the same time put the Ring of Honor world championship on me and I had two belts at one time.

Shipman: When he won the [world] title I started to cry. I started to cry as he started winning those titles. I get emotional because this is my son's dream, and I should get emotional when he's winning those titles.

Lethal: Having my parents in attendance is what made it the best night of my life. The biggest support I could have ever wished and hoped for. He's seen my first match in Ring of Honor. He's seen my evolution. When you're a little kid, you want to win the world title because it means you're the best, but once you get into wrestling, you realize it's much more than that. It's getting that corner office, and that bonus that you wanted, and that promotion. It's the highest praise that the office can bestow on a wrestler. It was that, but also that my parents were there. It was the perfect moment for me.

From my dad's point of view, it's a real cool thing to see your son at the very beginning stages, where he doesn't know what he's really doing, especially in a company like Ring of Honor, then giving your son the opportunity to excel, and then come full circle, now that same company has put the belt on your son.

Shipman: I was so happy for him. I told my wife, "We're on our way to go wherever he is."

Lethal: I think my dad thought that a long time ago. I don't think it was winning the belt that did it for him. I think that moment was more special to me than it was to him. Before that moment, his son had an action figure, his son was on pay-per-view, his son wrestled with Ric Flair, before then his son was flying all around the world and people would come from miles to say hello to him. I think his son, in his head, made it a very long time before that.

I've never asked him, what was the moment that did it for him? What was the moment that made him think, "my son has made it"? That would be an interesting one, especially since I don't even know the answer.

Shipman: When we went to a Jersey All Pro tryout and I used to tape it all, there was this one wrestler, old guy that was wrestling for them named Magic, and he told me, "You get a camcorder and tape anything Jamar does, because he has it. He's gonna make it in this business." So that's when I started taping everything that he did. That's when I knew he was gonna make it.

Jay Lethal's second reign as Ring of Honor world champion has pushed him past independent wrestling icons like Samoa Joe, Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) and Nigel McGuinness in the annals of ROH history. Zia Hiltey/Ring of Honor

The mecca

Lethal has performed all over the world, and has helped carry Ring of Honor through several periods of upheaval during his time as world champion. Now he has the opportunity to main event at Madison Square Garden, a place where he'd seen countless big moments in wrestling history happen -- but never in person.

Lethal: Unfortunately, I never got to make it out [to MSG]. My parents had six kids, and my dad was the only one working. He was the breadwinner, so you couldn't take one kid -- you had to take all six, and he would need a ticket, too, so an outing like a wrestling show was never really in our cards.

Shipman: It was a struggle. I was a heavy construction carpenter. We did bridge work and roadwork. That was a little dangerous, but I did it because look, I got six kids. I was making like $11 [an hour] then.

Lethal: Wrestlers from my generation thought that the only way to work at Madison Square Garden was to either work for WWE or fill out an application to work for Madison Square Garden as a janitor or vendor. The fact that I'm about to wrestle at Madison Square Garden without doing either one of those, it just proves that not only Ring of Honor's doing something special, the wrestling business as a whole is doing amazing.

Shipman: I never envisioned that. Never. I hoped the best for him, that he would climb all the way to the top, but I didn't think he would be at Madison Square Garden. I thought the places we went were good. Madison Square Garden, that's the mecca. That's the top. Wherever he wrestles, I'm proud of him. But Madison Square Garden is good. Real good.

Lethal: My parents, especially my dad, have never been fans of going into New York City. He doesn't really like the hustle and bustle, the traffic, and the train's always crowded. He doesn't like going, so when I mentioned we're going to Madison Square Garden, he had mentioned, "I think Mom and I are just gonna watch it on TV," and I said, "What? You were there for my first match, which is now a liquor store, and the locker room was not a room at all, it was the corner of the room curtained off with tarp and drapes. You were there, and you're not gonna come to Madison Square Garden? You must be out of your mind."

Shipman: New York was just a place I didn't want to go. If it was on pay-per-view, I'd rather sit at home and watch it on pay-per-view. But Madison Square Garden? You gotta go there.

Quotes for this piece were taken from multiple interviews with ESPN.com.