During a recent interview with ROHWrestling.com, Joe Hendry revealed the best advice he got over the years, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On the advice he’s received: “I’ll give you two. Goldberg told me that if I was going to use moves executed by other people that I should always put my own spin on it so to make it my own. This combines rather nicely with another fantastic piece of advice given to me by an Olympic hero. Kurt Angle told me that I needed to have a submission if I wanted to have main-event level matches. Neither of us spoke for a while until he said, ‘You want to use the ankle lock don’t you?’ Kurt gave me his blessing to use the hold, which I now proudly use with a little twist of my own where I will step over into a single-leg Boston Crab position, which I have humbly titled, The Hendry Lock.”
On his entrance music: “As mentioned previously, I have created a lot of custom entrances. I think around 60 or 70 now. However, most of these are parodies, which requires me re-recording and satirizing the lyrics of an existing song. Writing something catchy from scratch is far more challenging and taxing. With my current theme, I knew I wanted to have something at the start that announced my arrival and gave the audience something to participate in, for example, the two claps. Then I knew the perfect beat to get people clapping along is 120 beats per minute, so that would take up the bulk of the track.
However, when I set out to make the track I knew I wanted to do a mashup of different styles and thought, “Would it be possible to split the song into two distinct sections for pre- and post-entrance? For example, an electronic dance beat to build anticipation and then a slower, Queen-style rock solo that would make the audience feel like someone special had arrived.
For two weeks I’d say I tried to find examples of songs that had completely separate sections and used “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Knights of Cydonia” as a reference point of what might be possible. I wasn’t at any point convinced it would work, as it seemed a little ambitious, but my gut told me it was the way to go.
Previously I had recorded a video package to announce my signing with Ring of Honor and I kept humming this guitar line … after [the video] had been published, and after a while I really regretted not putting it in. About 10 days passed and I still couldn’t stop humming that line to the point that people around me started humming it as well.
I thought, “If this is infectious enough to find it’s way into people’s brains even when they haven’t heard it, then this should probably be the rock section of the song.” Due to scheduling difficulties I actually had to record it in two studios over the Saturday and Sunday the week before my debut. I only had access to the mics on the Saturday and instruments on the Sunday, so it was actually reverse-engineered, and somehow against all probability seemed to turn out well when myself and Neil, the producer I work with, had finished with it on Sunday.
I’ve always believed entrances are so important, and I’m glad we took the extra time with this one.”
On his relationship with Dalton Castle: “Myself and Dalton are the two biggest entertainers, the two biggest egos, the two biggest personalities in Ring of Honor. At first it was a battle to see who was No. 1, which Dalton and I each have our opinions on — mine being correct — but then we realized that if we joined forces we could become the most entertaining team in the history of pro wrestling. Let’s be honest, it should be illegal to have that much charisma in a ring at one time, but somehow, humbly, we manage.”
