While the reunion of former Jurassic Express duo “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry and Luchasaurus (Killswitch) seemed like an obvious, inevitable thing for AEW creative to do, it apparently was the exact opposite.
During a recent TVInsider.com interview, Jack Perry spoke about finally returning to AEW at the AEW All Out: Toronto pay-per-view on September 20, where he reunited with Luchasaurus.
Ahead of tonight’s 6-Year Anniversary special two-and-a-half hour episode of AEW Dynamite from Hollywood, FL., Perry spoke about how reuniting with Luchasaurus was “the hardest thing in the world” to get done, how people tried standing in the way of making it happening, how Luchasaurus nearly died due to health issues during their respective breaks from AEW and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On what it means for him to come back to AEW after being gone for a while: “It has been a lot longer than anybody would know. There is some of that I can’t reveal just because it peels back the curtain a bit too much. First off for me, I’ve been off since I think the last match I’ve wrestled was in January. It’s the longest I’ve gone in my life without wrestling since I was maybe 17, which has been interesting. I’m grateful for the time off, but at the same time I’ve been at home going a little nuts trying to find what to do with myself. On a personal note, it’s good to be back to work.”
On the story behind reuniting with Luchasaurus at AEW All Out: Toronto: “It’s something he and I had been talking about for a long time. The plans have gone off the rails a bit and the road has changed a lot, but it was always something that was going to happen. It was as far back as late 2023, maybe 2024. Things just changed a lot. That’s the way it goes. It always kept getting sidelined or changed or substituted for other people. So, we both ended up being off for most of this last year. Mine was a creative thing, but his was a medical thing.”
On Luchasaurus coming close to death due to health issues during his AEW hiatus: “I remember talking to him on the phone a lot during that time. He said, “I have this cold and can’t seem to get rid of it. I’d say for the past two or three weeks.” He didn’t think much of it. People were saying he was tough. That it was a cold. “You’ll get over this.” It turned out it wasn’t a cold but pneumonia. Thankfully, he went to the hospital when he did. He ended up collapsing and was this whole thing. They said to him, “if you didn’t come in right about now, there is a good chance you could have died.” Hearing that puts things in perspective a little bit. He is one of my best friends, not just in wrestling, but the entire world. He could have just died and that would have been it. I don’t know. It was one of those things that makes you look at your own life and think about it.”
On how reuniting with Luchasaurus was “the hardest thing in the world” to get done for a variety of reasons: “We got to talking when he was better about what we wanted to do. I think the way it lined up we thought it was something we had a lot of fun doing. We felt there was more meat on the bone, and we could do better this time around than we did the first time. It turned out to be hell on earth making it happen. It was the hardest thing in the world to get all the pieces together to finally do it. There were medical things, physical things, people getting in the way trying to make it not happen, but it eventually came together. It felt like it was the perfect moment when it finally did. I’m super grateful to be back and get that sort of reaction and do it with my best friend. I’m happy he is healthy now and seeing it all come together the way it did.”
On tonight’s AEW Dynamite 6-Year Anniversary show: “It’s crazy to think it has been six years because it feels like an entire lifetime. It has been so long and so many iterations of AEW with what it looks like. The fact the pandemic happened not even six months after starting this brand new company and show. Now it was a different world we had to adapt to and it came and we were better than ever. So much happened that it’s crazy when these anniversaries come up and see how different a place can be in one year. I’m very grateful to have been a part of it.”
