Joey Janela spoke with Wrestlezone following his appearance at Colt Cabana’s ‘Art Of Wrestling’ panel at Starrcast in Las Vegas. ‘The Bad Boy’ spoke about signing with All Elite Wrestling and how beneficial it’s been to be recognized for his creative talents, as well as how surreal the experience of seeing how far his career has gone so far:
“I like the creative freedom with AEW and The Bucks, Omega, Cody, those guys are creatively inclined like myself. I know they will like for me to keep some of that, that I had on the independents, and what I do with the Game Changer ‘Spring Break’ shows. Yeah, I’m ecstatic and it’s just surreal. Being there with the line we had, me and Penelope [Ford] for our meet-and-greet, today, it was surreal. Something I will always remember. If I only make it to this point in my life I will be happy because this is surreal.”
Janela says AEW was the right move because he’s getting to be himself, and sees the similarities in how ‘All In’ and his own ‘Spring Break’ shows were. Janela says he hopes that he can continue to be a presence in a backstage capacity in the future as well.
“I know it’s the right move because even talking to the guys about tomorrow, they’re taking my ideas and rolling with them. It’s going to be great. I am happy to be here and happy to share my ideas with the boys, their open ears. Even Spring Break and All In, the first show, they were very similar. We’re coming in [as] independent guys and doing ourselves and we’re successful at it. It might be on a smaller scale, but we’re getting on a bigger scale and being able to do those shows throughout the year and being signed here for the next three years, it’s a wonderful thing. I’ve developed talent through those shows, and as you can see—you’ll see tomorrow and you saw at All In—I am feeding the talent right here and hopefully in the future I will still be working with Game Changer Wrestling when I am not doing AEW in a backstage sense. I hope we can figure out a working relationship because we’re doing great things.”
Janela also spoke about building your own brand and how important it is for upcoming talent to establish themselves in a world where it could take years to make a splash. Janela cited his own ability to see talent that is ready to break out, and wants to continue to help them rise as well as strengthen his own brand:
“I have a grasp on things right now and my finger on the pulse. The reason my last relationship didn’t work out is because I was always on my phone. Even though she’s in the wrestling business, she should know better, but that’s how I am. I take this business very seriously and am always looking at ways I can improve my product or improve someone else’s product, or improve a wrestler that I know is on the verge of breaking out. ‘Listen, this guy could be the next big deal’—me and Brett Lauderdale at Game Changer Wrestling, we’ve done it. We’ve done it four times, with Pierre Carl Ouellet, with Jungle Boy, with Marco Stunt, and now tomorrow you will see a new debuting guy at AEW, Dustin Thomas, who is an amazing athlete, he has an amazing story. With ‘Spring Break’ I took him to the next level, and within a month, he’s booked on Double Or Nothing at the MGM Grand with 14,000 people. I am happy to help make his dreams come true and get him to the next level, and I’m going to continue to do that throughout the years while improving my brand and my reputation.”
