Sylvester Lefort

Thomas Sylvester La Ruffa (born May 4, 1984) is a French professional wrestler currently wrestling under the ring name Tom LaRuffa.

He is best known for his time in WWE, in their developmental territory NXT as Sylvester Lefort, and for his time in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) under the ring name Basile Baraka.

La Ruffa was trained by Lance Storm at the Storm Wrestling Academy and finished training in 2006.

On November 19, 2006, La Ruffa made his debut in the squared circle as he lost a match at Power Zone Wrestling in Canada.

On January 13, 2007, La Ruffa made his debut for International Catch Wrestling Alliance, during a 2 weeks tour of the French island La Réunion in the Indian Ocean, under the name of Eagle Mask and teamed with Pierre Fontaine to lose to The UK Pitbulls.

La Ruffa teamed up with Robert Ray to take part in the Lethal Lottery Tag Team tournament and reached the finals of the tournament before being knocked out by Big Dave and Charlie Rage.

As a singles competitor he participated in the ICWA 16 Carat Gold tournament, in the preliminary qualification match he would lose to Bulk.

For most of 2007 he competed in various other French promotions such as Association Biterroise de Catch, Fighting Spirit Federation and Queen of Chaos.

In the summer of 2007, he toured with Nu Wrestling Evolution in Italy, where he faced the world champion Romeo Roselli.

His final matches in 2007 were at the Spanish promotion Super Wrestling Alliance where he competed as both Eagle Mask and Tom LaRuffa and didn't suffer any losses in the promotion.

In September 2007, La Ruffa to train at the NWA Pro Dojo in San Bernardino, California.

There he received additional training with Rocky Romero, Karl Anderson, and T. J. Perkins.

In October, he would debut in Mexico, wrestling on Lucha Libre shows in Mexicali.

he would also take part to the infamous San Francisco's Cow Palace Fan Festival on October 20, where he teamed with TNA's Lance Hoyt to face Shark Boy and Abyss.

On November 4, La Ruffa would debut for Empire Wrestling Federation as the French Stallion and defeat Country Bear.

Throughout the month of November, La Ruffa would form various tag teams which never quite worked as he lost all his tag team matches.

In his last match for EWF for about a year, he lost to Ronin.

He returned to France in June 2008.

In the semifinal of ICWA's Japan Expo 2008 tournament in Paris, he lost to Metal Master.

On the same event, he also teamed with Bryan Danielson.

On August 2, he took on Joe E. Legend in an unsuccessful challenge for the ICWA World Heavyweight Championship.

LaRuffa took on Yan Colby in a no disqualification, loser leaves ICWA match which Yan Colby won.

From January to March 2008, back to Calgary, Canada, Tom assisted Lance Storm in training his January 2008 camp.

On January 18, 2008, he debuted in Stampede Wrestling and lost to T-Bone.

He went on to work for various promotions throughout Alberta like Prairie Wrestling Alliance.

Powerzone Wrestling or Real Canadian Wrestling, having feuds with Brady Roberts and T-Bone Jack Sloan.

On April 4, 2008, La Ruffa would return to EWF and defeating Rockstar Cordova in his return match.

His 2008 tour would prove to be much better than his 2007 tour.

He defeated Human Tornado and Ryan Taylor in a triple threat match and went on to challenge the EWF Heavyweight Champion Brandon Gatson in an unsuccessful effort.

His tour of America would end on a low losing all his matches in his final few months at EWF.

While in EWF, La Ruffa teamed with fellow Storm Wrestling Academy graduate and WWE developmental talent Mike Dalton.

Before heading back to Europe in mid-2008, La Ruffa had several WWE try outs in California.

He appeared briefly in the background of a backstage segment.

On September 4, 2008, La Ruffa debuted for Wrestling Stars, France's top promotion and one of the longest-running in all of Europe.

La Ruffa enjoyed most of his recent success there and established himself as one of Europe's top talent while fighting against the continent's best competitors and making a name for himself through YouTube videos.

While in WS, he took on a Greek warrior gimmick, to pay tribute to his family roots.

While in WS Tom was taken under the wings of famous French pro wrestlers : Flesh Gordon, Prince Zefy and Monsieur Jacky and headlined shows all over his native country, often wrestling three shows per weekend, 2 matches per nights.

His greatest feuds in WS were against Sir Robin Lequimez, Murat Bosporus, Mikey Diamonds (Mikey Whiplash, to whom he lost All Star Wrestling's World Mid-Heavyweight Championship in Croydon, UK, in March), Ghent Wakefiel and fellow French WS Star David Michel.

His WS career has been featured in many press articles and TV appearances.

One of the most notable was a documentary on his life couple with the daughter of WS top star and 40 years veteran of French rings Flesh Gordon : Lili Gordon for NT1's Tous Differents TV show.