Joe Hendry appeared as a guest on the latest installment of the wildly popular INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the reigning TNA World Champion spoke about his theme song going viral after over five years, tweet implying he’s going to win the WWE World Championship, fans feeling he was squashed by Randy Orton at WrestleMania 41 and how that devalued the TNA World Championship, a potential John Cena match and Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque saying he would be at many more WrestleMania events.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On how his theme song got over after 5 years: “Because in Ring of Honor, I had this song. The audio file is the exact same, but when I do the turn, it’s almost like the difference between the British Office and the American Office. I had this discussion the other day that it’s like wrestling is theater, and it needs to be larger than life. I was really more focused on the nuance before of what I thought was funny. Whereas it’s like with wrestling, you have to be larger than life. So this became that sort of thing. So I think making that transition, and also what I learned at TNA about character development. I learned then that making everything bigger and just learning who and what Joe Hendry was as a character, I allowed that to come out visually in the second entrance video that I had done. And I think by doing that, it just tipped it over the edge.”
On the tweet implying that he was going to win the World Championship: “That’s that’s another thing as well, because it’s like, I see things online where people are like, Oh, well, he just talks about WWE stuff, and it’s not true at all. I spend most of my interview time talking about TNA wrestling, but a lot of the WWE stuff will go viral. So it’s this game where I have to talk about exciting possibilities at WWE, but also need to represent the championship. So for me, this title reign is about doing big business for TNA. That’s my goal. There are certain title reigns that will be remembered for certain things. When Josh Alexander was champ, it was about classic match after classic match after classic match. If you bought a ticket to TNA wrestling, you know you were getting a five-star banger. With me, it’s about me with this championship. When people look at my reign, they will see business; that’s what I wanted to do. And every decision that I’ve made has been about what is going to be best for business. I know a lot of people had a lot of things to say about certain decisions that I’ve made. So for example, people who are in the industry understand how great it is for business for to me wrestle Randy Orton. Whereas other people, they’re going to have thoughts on it. But I understand. It took me zero seconds to decide whether that’s what I want to do. I was like, I’m there. Let’s do it.”
On some fans believing that Joe Hendry was squashed by Randy Orton: “The thing is, one, it was back and forth, so I got offense in. It’s Randy Orton’s 20th WrestleMania. It’s also Randy Orton. The thing is, I did the spin around. So it’s like me being the Joe Hendry character, the RKO is one hit kill. And in that show the feedback that I got was exactly what it was supposed to be. And let’s be honest, the next how many days later, we had the biggest show TNA has ever had in 10 years, we had a higher attendance at Slammiversary. So we were past 4,000. I understand what this is, and my job is to put asses in seats for TNA wrestling.”
On fans feeling that the TNA World Championship was devalued: “I think that in wrestling, everything has to be a story. So, in the movie, does Rocky win every single match? I mean, the story is Joe Hendry lost to Randy Orton. How is the champion going to recover from this? You know who else lost quickly at WrestleMania? John Cena to The Undertaker. You know who else lost quickly at WrestleMania? Triple H. People have lost quickly at WrestleMania and these are the stories that we’re telling. When John Cena lost to The Undertaker, it was what is the path from here? And that’s what I’ve really learned from watching John Cena is that just make everything a story. Everything is a story. So it’s just about, okay, where do I go from here as champion? It added more weight and drama to the triple threat that we had, because it was me, it was Frankie [Kazarian], and it was Ethan Page, and it’s like the partnership’s so strong. All three outcomes were completely within the realms of possibility, and nobody knew what was going to happen that night. Not even we knew what was going to happen that night right up until the wire. So that’s when it’s exciting, when anything can happen.”
On being backstage after WrestleMania 41: “I can’t believe this is real. So after that happened, I got to the back and I spoke with Randy. I spoke with CM Punk. Spoke with Cody. Then as I’m walking, I had this little room, which we should talk about, we gotta give credit. This was a military operation to get me into the building. We’ll come back to that. But I was walking from this little room I had. I was just walking past. And again, this is when life doesn’t feel real, who could have timed this? So I’m walking back. You actually saw this in the backstage footage. I had a nice conversation with Michael Cole. I had a wonderful, quick conversation with Stephanie McMahon as well. Then I was walking to the back, and because I just watched the rest of Mania with William Regal, actually, which was very cool, because he was someone I met really early on in my career and he helped me advance my understanding of what this game is way quicker than I would have had we not had that. He talked to me for two hours when I just started to go, this is what this game is. Ultimately, the big message was that pro wrestling is about building trust with the audience, trust with your peers, trust with your colleagues, trust with management. It’s about building trust with those stakeholders. But anyway, I digress. So I’m walking back from there, and at the same moment the match has just finished, John is walking back with his WWE Championship. He’s literally just become the greatest of all time. It’s now a fact he’s the greatest of all time. He’s walking back, and this is how awesome John is. Sees me, once he came out of Gorilla, immediately walks over to me.”
On whether the John Cena match is still possible: “Of course it’s possible. The real question is do I think it will happen? Yes. I mean, my track record’s looking pretty good, but I can’t tell you. I can’t explain it. I just feel it in my heart, to be honest with you. I just would be lying if I sat here and said I didn’t think it would happen.”
On Triple H saying Joe Hendry would be at many more WrestleMania events: “He did say that to me backstage, exactly as he said it in the press conference is what he said to me. This is what I really like about my interactions with Triple H. He’s an awesome guy, he’s just a cool guy, and for him to take that moment to come over when he’s producing WrestleMania, to come over, because that moment is for me, is for nobody else, for him to give me that moment, very busy, to go, Hey, listen, you’ll be here again, but this is the fun one. He knows what he’s doing, and in a way, him telling me that takes all the nerves away, doesn’t it? It allows you to go out there and be free and enjoy the moment. And he did that at Rumble as well, because it could be an overwhelming moment for people. I have no idea why I was so calm at WrestleMania. I do suspect it’s because I ran it through so many times in my head over the last year, and part of that is because he took the time to have that conversation with me.”
