While you were sleeping, one of professional wrestling’s fastest rising stars won gold on the other side of the world.

Lance Archer, the 6-8 big man from Austin who now hails from Cedar Hill, captured one of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s most prestigious titles. Archer defeated Juice Robinson in a “no disqualification” match to win the vacant IWGP United States Championship in Tokyo.

With the win, the 42-year-old Texan becomes the sixth performer to wear the relatively young title after it was sanctioned in 2017. The strap’s brief lineage can be traced back to some of the best talents working the squared circle today, including New Japan’s Jay White and All Elite Wrestling (AEW) stars Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega.

Billed as “The American Psycho,” Archer enjoyed brief stints in American wrestling companies such as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and TNA (now Impact Wrestling) before finding himself in New Japan.

“As you’re coming up in the business, some guys and girls, they get it right away,” Archer, whose real last name is Hoyt, told The News in June. “They understand exactly who they are and what they should be doing. Some of us take a little bit longer, and I was one of them.”

“I have the size, I have the look. I have the basic abilities and things like that, but I was always searching for who I should be. When I got to New Japan, they helped me discover that. I’d go out and I’d have a match and they’d be like, ‘Very good. Very good, but more monster. More big. More strong.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, cool.’ So, every time I went out, I would just be a bigger monster, a stronger badass.”

New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) has been Archer’s primary in-ring home since 2011, and the U.S. title isn’t his first taste of championship gold in Japan. Archer, alongside Canadian pro-wrestler Davey Boy Smith Jr., is a three-time IWGP Tag Team Champion. Their last tag-title reign ended in September of 2017.

Even before he won the U.S. Championship, 2019 had already been a landmark year for Archer’s pro-wrestling career. Archer competed in this year’s G1 Climax -- an annual and storied round-robin tournament designed to feature NJPW’s top heavyweights. Archer opened the tournament with a win over British wrestling phenom Will Ospreay in Dallas -- the first G1 Climax match ever contested outside of Japan.

RELATED -- Undisputed champ, no more: WWE will face new contender when New Japan Pro Wrestling crashes American Airlines Center

Archer’s turn with the mid-card singles title, his first with NJPW, is a sign of his strong standing within New Japan’s locker room and how much the company respects him as a performer. To a lesser degree, his opportunity to compete for the U.S. Championship was also a case of being in the right place at the right time. He was placed into the championship match as a replacement for the defending champion Jon Moxley, an American performer who pulls double duty between NJPW and U.S. based promotion AEW.

Moxley was unavailable to defend his title due to travel complications caused by Typhoon Hagibis.

No matter how long Archer holds the belt, pro-wrestling fans should expect him to be prominently featured on upcoming New Japan cards both here in the States and overseas.

New Japan created the U.S. Championship to help broaden the company’s horizons with American audiences. The 19-year wrestling veteran from Texas is certainly a worthy ambassador.