Joe Hendry says he’s excited for the opportunity to use his music to get himself over with Ring Of Honor fans.
Hendry recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about what he’s been up to since he’s been at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ring Of Honor is not hosting any events at this time due to health and safety concerns but they’ve filled their social media accounts with fun and engaging content until they hit the road again. Hendry is filming a new “Joe Vs.” web show that features him tackling different challenges against the ROH roster but he’s also putting his musical background to the test with parody songs dealing with current issues.
Hendry’s popularity grew overseas due to using them as entrance themes but he stuck with his “Clap Your Hands” theme in ROH. Hendry says it’s difficult to write parodies and doesn’t want to create any copyright issues for his new employer, and believes he needs to lean into using music that is original material even more now.
“I would like to utilize my music more moving forward. I’m excited for the challenge. At the end of the day, wrestling’s all about star power and I’m just as hungry as hell to just get myself as over as possible and I’m just working that. I’m going to town on these entrances man. I can’t tell you how hard I’m working on these right now. I’ve never been more excited to be in the business. I know it’s weird with the situation that we’re in.”
Hendry says Ring Of Honor has been great with talent since they’ve stopped running events, and they’re not only letting talent filter what content they put out but also giving them a proper forum to voice their concerns.
“I can’t tell you how great they’ve been with putting our safety first. For example, they’ve told us, ‘We’re not going to get you to do anything you don’t want to do, this is down to the talent, what do you want to do?’ Like we’re getting looked after but we can provide feedback directly or anonymously if we’re not comfortable saying it in front of the group. So they’ve provided channels for us to give anonymous feedback as to what’s going on. I just can’t tell you how great they’ve been.”
Before the pandemic, Hendry was starting to team with Dalton Castle and it felt like they were finally getting on a roll with each other. Hendry says a tag team match with The Briscoes really felt like a turning point for the team, and while they’re on hiatus now he can put things in perspective and can’t wait to return.
“I felt in my heart that that was going to be another break-out moment for the team. You tend to trust your gut instinct. My gut was telling me, ‘We are just gonna have a killer weekend. This is gonna be amazing.’ I just, I was feeling fantastic about it and I was gutted when what happened did, but like I said, us not getting to wrestle the opponents we wanted to is a very small thing to be concerned about when there’s people who’s health is at risk and losing their lives and we need to maintain that perspective. I’m just really fortunate to have been treated so well and to be taken care of by the company so I can really focus on doing this content. I’m just so hungry to get back.
“Me and him are so different in every way. Our senses of humor are completely different. Completely different styles of humor and so sometimes he’ll just do things in promos and I can’t stop laughing.”
Related: The Music Man: ROH’s Joe Hendry On Staying Busy, Churning Out More Hit Songs For Fans In Quarantine
The Watch List takes a look at what matches you should be watching while you’re at home and they come recommended by your favorite professional wrestling stars.
“That was going to be—I was so looking forward to that. I’ve only ever wrestled one match, fully in that style, from start to finish. It was me versus Timothy Thatcher and literally, it was a case of ‘see you out there’ and we went out there and did our thing. I’m gutted that I couldn’t take part in this [new] tournament and this all happened before that. I really felt it was a chance to show something completely different that I know I can do. So if you want to check that out, I had a match with Timothy Thatcher that was like a ‘pure style’ match.”
Hendry’s match with Thatcher can be seen below; we also added some recommendations to the list and selected some classic Pure Championship matches as well as his match with Kurt Angle and the first-ever main event in Ring Of Honor history.
Joe Hendry vs. Timothy Thatcher
Discovery Wrestling — November 4, 2018
Joe Hendry vs. Kurt Angle
Defiant Refuse To Lose 2016 — October 6, 2016
CM Punk vs. AJ Styles (ROH Pure Championship Finals)
Ring Of Honor 2nd Anniversary — February 14, 2004
Jay Lethal vs. John Walters (ROH Pure Championship)
ROH Trios Tournament — March 5, 2005
Bryan Danielson vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Low Ki (First-Ever ROH Main Event)
Ring Of Honor: The Era Of Honor Begins — February 23, 2002
Check out all of the free-to-watch, full-length matches at this link.
