Joe Hendry On How His ROH Signing Happened

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Joe Hendry spoke about how he signed with ROH and who came up with his introductory vignette. Here are highlights:

On the video that introduced him to ROH: “Well, a genius must have edited that. I don’t know who that was, but he must have been a genius. Basically, The Prestigious One has come to ROH with a goal in mind. You’ve seen me before with the entrances and having a lot of fun, and we’re still doing that, but things are a little more serious now. I’m looking to really fuse the two sides of my personality which is the fun entrances and the intensity of an amateur wrestler.”

On playing the piano in the video: “I’m more of guitar guy but I did actually play the piano in that but it was actually just one key that I hit repeatedly. So I’m not touting my piano abilities too much.”

On how his signing happened: “In 2016 I flew myself over to Baltimore and attended ROH tryout camp. I worked as hard as I possibly could and got myself an opportunity on the UK Tour that year. On that tour I saw the TV Title won twice by British wrestlers – Marty Scurll and Will Ospreay. Now on the tour, I have the exact same opportunity to do that because I’m facing Shane Taylor in London for the TV Title and I have every intention of making history repeat itself. The fact is, I’ve had multiple organizations made offers to me but I chose to go to ROH. I wanted to go to ROH and it’s something I’ve had my sights on since 2016. I’ve done two tours for them since then and it’s finally happened. ROH is somewhere that is not only going to push me athletically, but it’s gonna allow me to be who I need to be. When it comes to creative stuff with the entrances, they are letting me be me. All I have to do is show up for the video file. They trust me to do that and that is a very valuable thing to have in wrestling today. So I knew ROH was going to be the perfect home for me.”

On how the locker room is different from earlier runs: “It’s a blast. Whenever I’ve been on the road with ROH, I know this sounds cheesy but I’ve been saying it to friends and family, it’s what I imagined the dream to be. I get to travel the world and see places I would otherwise never get to see. I’ve got visas for America so I can wrestle all over America and am discovering new states. But also you’ve got a roster that is competitive in the right way. If you look at the landscape of pro wrestling – all of a sudden you have Wednesday Night Wars – but people are gonna be surprised by the quality of ROH. The momentum is there and the level of athlete we’ve got is absolutely there. This roster is hungry and competitive and you better bring your A game every single time you show up to the building or you’re not gonna survive. If you wanna thrive, you’ve got to constantly pushing yourself against the best wrestlers in the world. If you look at ROH’s roster and if you watch our program, everyone matters on that show.”