Welcome to pro wrestling according to Joe Hendry.
WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard recently spoke with Joe Hendry, IMPACT Wrestling’s current Digital Media Champion. Hendry, who currently lives in Scotland, spoke about getting a chance to work with his dream company and shared a bit of insight as to how involved he will be with IMPACT.
“I think the awesome thing about that situation is there’s flexibility from both parties. So the way it works is when I need to be there more, I’ll be there more. When there’s time for me to be at home, I’ll be at home. So feeling very fortunate and blessed to be with a company that’s kind of allowing me to do that. So as you say, I do have a home here, I’ve got my dog here,” Hendry explained. “I’ve got like a training school here as well. So having the flexibility to keep that going and obviously be with family over here is awesome as well.
“It’s been it’s been a long road. Covid was a was a big challenge. I had to completely reinvent myself. I reinvented my physique, my whole look, my character. I threw out every single one of my old moves and just reinvented everything and just took some big risks to get the visa done and stuff like that in terms of the time and the investment that it takes,” Hendry said. “But thankfully, it paid off. We got the deal done with IMPACT. I couldn’t be happier in my doing my dream job in my dream company. Not many people can get to say that, so I’m feeling very fortunate.”
Say his name and he appears! Following the vignette that aired on #IMPACTonAXSTV! @joehendry has signed with @IMPACTWRESTLING! pic.twitter.com/t9bR4Xyyrw
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) September 19, 2022
Hendry’s debut was in the form of a secret vignette of sorts, as he was featured in a comedic teaser video set in a hospital. Hendry’s type of humor is well-known to Ring Of Honor and international fans, but it’s a bit of a new approach for IMPACT Wrestling, who has done well with comedic elements in the past. Asked what type of reaction he expected, Hendry said that it’s all about doing the work and he knew right away that IMPACT was the place for him.
“So, here’s my philosophy. I think you have to do the work. You have to do what you think it has to be. For example, IMPACT has to do wrestling according to IMPACT. As a wrestler, I have to do wrestling according to Joe, and we need to collaborate on that. And as an interviewer, Bill, you do interviewing according to Bill, and that’s a really good phrase that there’s a bodybuilder, Tom Platt, said you need to approach tasks with this. Like for him, it was bodybuilding according to Tom Platts, and I’ve always carried that forward in recent years. And what that means to me is that basically if I have a really strong conviction about something that I think is going to be good or I think is funny,” Hendry explained, “then I owe it to myself and most importantly, the audience, to fight for that idea as best I can.
“Now, I knew I immediately made the right choice because IMPACT let me do that and gave me the freedom to go and make that vignette and trusted that I was going to deliver it in the way that it needed to be delivered. to their credit, that’s exactly as they were in 2018 as well [in Ring of Honor]. Don’t get me wrong, Ring of Honor was an awesome opportunity. I loved a lot of aspects of working there,” he noted, “but what’s special about IMPACT is that I think there’s a real belief in what I create, and I think I had the freedom to go away and do that.
“I mean, can you imagine for recording that as a wrestler, say, ‘okay, so right, here’s what I’m going to do,’ and can you imagine me having to pitch that to say, ‘well, there’s going to be a hospital and then there’s going to be a guy on his deathbed and I’m going to burst through the door and then the nurse and dolts that are going to miss the fact that you start flatlining, because I’ve got everybody dancing and I’m responsible for a death.’ And then on the next one, I think that was the couple one where there’s a family argument going on because someone else has fathered this child and who is it? Then Joe Henry bursts in the room. Well, as you can imagine in wrestling, that’s a lot to ask a creative team to go, ‘yeah, okay, go ahead and make those.’ I just knew right then and there that I’d made the right decision because Jimmy Jacobs was like, ‘Go do your thing. Go do your thing.’ It was a two-minute conversation. ‘What do you need? Okay, sounds great. Awesome. I’m into it. I get it, Go do it.’
Hendry said that it’s a great feeling to not only go out and do that, but the audience shared the same feelings too. For that, he’s very happy.
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