During a recent edition of the “Insight With Chris Van Vliet” podcast, TNA Wrestling star Joe Hendry commented on his 2016 match with Kurt Angle in WCPW, coming up with his character in TNA, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his match with Kurt Angle in WCPW: “I look back at this and I’m like, ‘How on earth did I have the balls to pull this off?’ A fan asked me, ‘What’s your dream match?’ And I thought and I answered it, saying, well, just like a one-off match and I went to Kurt Angle and I tagged him thinking nothing of it. Kurt Angle DM’d me, in 2015. He says, ‘Listen, I’ve heard your name, I’ve seen a couple things,’ ’cause I think at that point I’d done like my first like viral entrance. I came to the ring to ‘Wrecking Ball’ but I came to the ring in a zorb as Henry Ball. And so Kurt said, ‘I know who you are and you’re not ready yet. But maybe one day you’ll get the match,’ and I was like, ‘Wow!’”
On getting the match booked: “I walk in the [WhatCulture] boardroom and I says, ‘Thanks for meeting [me]. You guys tried to get Kurt Angle, didn’t you?’ And they went — and I’m just a trainee at this point and they went — ‘Yeah, yeah.’ And I went, ‘What did he say?’ and knowing what he said and they went, ‘Oh, he said no.’ And I went, ‘I can get you Kurt Angle,’ and I says, ‘But if I get him, I need both of your word that I wrestle him,’ and I says, ‘And I’m top guy after that.’ And I’m a trainee at the time and they went, ‘You can really get Kurt Angle?’ I was like, ‘Those are the terms’ and they were like, ‘Alright.’ They shook my hand.”
On coming up with his character in TNA: “Before TNA, I had the gimmick, but not the character. I had custom entrance songs that people enjoyed. Whereas, the character element of who Joe Hendry is on television, that came to be in TNA.”
On who helped him find his character: “It really has taken an army of people to get me to this point, and I’ll shout out many people, but one person I’m going to shout out first is Eric Young. A few weeks before I got to TNA, me and Eric Young first met on a show in Germany … He helped me understand how I should approach this. So that’s where it started, and then TNA management have worked very hands-on with me. It’s just been an incredible learning experience.”
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