Jack Perry Discusses Why He Wanted To Reunite Jurassic Express, Says He and Luchasaurus Needed a ‘Palate Cleanser’

Speaking to Renee Paquette on AEW Close Up, AEW wrestler Jack Perry discussed his career, and being off TV again for a while, and devising the return of Jurassic Express with Luchasaurus, who was also sidelined from TV due to a scary bout with pneumonia. Jurassic Express would ultimately reunite at AEW All Out 2025 earlier in September. Below are some highlights:

Jack Perry on His Current Run in AEW

“Yeah. this time. Um, it is funny cuz it’s always changing like every every time I leave and come back. Every year it’s like a different thing than it was the year before. This one was in some like the time off I had before this was in some ways harder. Again, I thought I was going to I think my last one was at full gear and I expected to be back in January. And then I didn’t get back till like was it September in Toronto? And then it had been too long. I was like, I can’t do the scapegoat thing anymore. Then it six months later, I was like, I don’t think I can go back to that. And then I was like, well, what do I do? Like at this point, I don’t know if I can come up with something entirely new again. I don’t like feel and then I always feel funny calling him Luchasaurus, but Luchasaurus, he actually had had pneumonia in real life. Not storyline wrestling pneumonia.”

On Luchasaurus Nearly Dying From Pneumonia

And he I mean he literally almost died which was so weird because I remember talking to him on the phone and over the course of two weeks he’s like, ‘Oh I have a cold. Whatever.’ And then a couple days later he’s like, ‘I still have a cold.’ And then two weeks later he’s like, ‘Dude I can’t get rid of this cold. It’s like at night I can’t breathe and this and that.’ And I was like I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking that much about it cuz he was telling me it was a cold. He’s old as hell. 65-66 million, whatever. But yeah, I didn’t think about it. And then one day, like literally, I guess he was trying to work out. And I’ve been telling him, I was like, ‘Probably take it easy, dude.’ Like, but he’s a nut, so he was just like working out crazy hard. And then I guess he like collapsed to the ground. And his fiance came in and found him with like purplish lips and like he was on the floor. And I guess it was a thing actually like they were saying a lot of people I think he said it was called walking pneumonia. He knows more about it and he at some point I think he wants to tell everyone all about it but it’s like a thing. I don’t know. I didn’t really know pneumonia was like a current thing. I’ve sort of only heard about it like And they took him to the hospital and I don’t remember the percentages but they said like you’re within like 10% of like if you get below this you probably would have died. And that was just like holy like you could have been dead, which you know is something sometimes I do but I don’t really think about that like I would never think there’s a good chance this guy will be dead next week because ideally there’s not. So, that also was like kind of that was nuts. And then he ended up being off for such a long time as well.”

On Coming Up With the Jurassic Express Reunion

“And then I forget exactly how it came up, but we ended up and it was like we should probably just come back together right now because I need kind of like a palate cleanser. You do too, and it’s been years. So, we decided, we’re gonna come back together, which ended up being kind of very hard to get to work out like scheduling wise or something. I don’t know. But that also was I knew people were going to know like they would know who we were. But I didn’t know how much people would care kind of because it’s been a while, and also here’s the thing for me, even before I was with him, I had this Jungle Boy character, which I was like, for me was a way of like really avoiding it’s not who I really am, but like who everyone was kind of like trying to push me to be, which is like Beverly Hills Jack or whatever. And I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that. I will never do that.’ So I was like, I’m Jungle Boy. I don’t talk or whatever. Like you can’t get me to say any about like the Peaach Pit or whatever. Like you just have to watch me wrestle and that’s it. And coming up like on the independents, I had people be like, ‘Oh, this character like I can’t put this on my show. This is ridiculous.’ I was like whatever. So then to like make it with that character and then make it with this guy who’s a dinosaur and then also Marco Stunt. Remember Marco Stunt?

“So to make it to TV with this like absurd trio which like everyone was always telling us this this is not going to work guys like this is ridiculous. You shouldn’t do this. You’re too small. So we made it and then it actually went like very well and people dug it. So I don’t know. So then when we were coming back, I knew people had liked it the first time, but we did it and we got back together and it was awesome and the music played and I had people messaging me like, ‘I cried when you guys got back together.’ And that was crazy to me cuz I was I was just think like in the time that we were together, I guess it like kind of cut deep.”

Jack Perry is currently competing in the AEW Continental Classic Tournament, replacing Darby Allin. After losing to Kazuchika Okada in his first matchup, he picked up a victory over Mike Bailey in the Gold League. Perry picked up his second win in the tournament during last night’s AEW Dynamite on 34th Street against PAC.

If using any of the above quotes, please credit AEW Close Up and give an H/T to 411Mania for the transcription.