AEW star Joey Janela recently spoke with the Wrestling Perspective podcast to discuss a wide range of topics, including how he believes this next year will be his biggest yet as a pro-wrestler. Highlights from the Bady Boy’s interview can be found below.
How 2020 forced him to evolve his character:
Everything has to evolve, and I’ve come to notice that in the last year, because without a crowd being there for TV, I was at AEW, when there was crowds there, I was doing big merch for them and I was over. And then the crowds disappeared, and I had no crowd to rely on anymore. So that was hard because I’m a big ‘just go with the crowd’ guy, so 2020 kinda hurt me a little bit. But now I realize I have to evolve my character into something else to continue to move forward and grow myself.
Thinks that this next year will be his biggest ever as a pro-wrestler:
I think the Bad Boy thing, I think I’ll keep with that. The Heartbreak Kid’ was always ‘The Heartbreak Kid.’ Right now he’s ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ and he’s not a kid. But I think keeping that moniker, I got the trademark for it now because a few people try to come after me. So I’ve got that, so I might as well just run with it, but there’s definitely ways to evolve it into something else. And we’re working on that right now, and I think next year is gonna be my biggest year yet as a professional wrestler. We’re just thinking of ways to just do different, and they kind of just don’t tell me what to say, so I just think of stuff. And right now, I think if we run with it a little bit more, I think it’s gonna be very good for me going forward.
On connecting with an audience:
I’ve never really had a chance really to talk in AEW and connect on a promo level, even though I always knew I could. I think that was one of the issues with me and why I haven’t in the last year really have gotten over and connected with the the audience that’s coming in, is because I never got a chance to do those and talk and stuff. So I think I’m just gonna keep on rolling with it.
(H/T and transcribed by WrestleZone
)