Joey Janela recently spoke with Tim Fiorvanti for ESPN.com; you can read a few highlights below:
Joey Janela comments on not mailing it in and performing no matter where he is:
“I’m never, ever mailing it in. A lot of these guys, they become successful on the independent scene and they’ll go to a show, wrestle in front of 100 people and tone it down completely. They’re just like, ‘Oh, no. Not tonight.’ I’ll go anywhere. I’ll wrestle in front of five people and do the same thing I did in front of 2,000 people. That’s just how I am, and that’s my character, and that’s why fans gravitate towards me.”
Janela comments on getting a shot with PWG:
“I nearly almost screwed up the booking for myself. I didn’t look at my email for five days and Super Dragon was trying to contact me — I had no idea.”
“I think I wrestled for every promotion in the United States this year, but PWG, man, you just go out there and kill it,” said Janela. “If I didn’t kill it, I would never probably live it down. If I didn’t go out there and put on the match I put on, then I probably would have been very upset at myself for a very long time.
“This is the elite of wrestlers. This is the club. The Kenny Omegas and the Young Bucks and the Zack Sabre Jrs., this is like a superteam Yankees roster of professional wrestlers that they put together, and I guess I made the cut. It was just a crazy experience.”
Janela comments on looking at his career as a successful one:
“I make a living now off wrestling. I don’t have to deliver pizzas anymore. God forbid, if I just stay on the independents for the rest of my life, I did it. I lived my dream. I wrestled everyone I wanted to wrestle. And god forbid I don’t make it. But now, I think I might. I don’t know. A lot of people tell me I might make it.
“Someone like me is never supposed to make it in this business. Maybe they’re supposed to wrestle for one promotion for a couple of years and that’s it. I kind of feel like I proved everyone wrong.”
