Anthony Henry goes over his latest opportunity with AEW.
Last week’s edition of AEW Dynamite on TBS saw Bryan Danielson and Jon Moxley’s first match as a tag team under the guidance of William Regal. They took on The WorkHorsemen (Anthony Henry & JD Drake) who have been teaming since 2017.
Drake has become a regular in All Elite Wrestling, as he’s a part of ‘The Wingmen’ with Ryan Nemeth, Cezar Bononi and Peter Avalon.
Anthony Henry talked about the recent match when he was a guest on The Shining Wizards Podcast. He was informed about the opportunity on a ten hour notice and recapped how it came to fruition.
As far as the [JD] Drake thing goes, The WorkHorsemen thing goes, man, that was like on ten hour notice. It was — again, we’ve been pushing this to whoever would listen and yeah, it was just one of those things. I got a call from Drake at like 11:30, 11:45 at night. I’m like, ‘What in the world?’ Because nobody calls me first off and so I look at my phone and it’s him. I don’t talk on the phone. I hate it actually. But, so he’s calling me and I’m like, ‘Oh… well I better answer this because I don’t know what — he’s gotta be calling me for a reason’ and he’s pretty excited on the phone. He’s just like blah, blah, blah, ‘They want us there. Can you do it?’ I’m like, ‘Well yeah, I guess’ and then so like literally 1 o’clock in the morning, they’re like booking our flights and I had to stay up long enough to figure out what time I had to be at the airport and you know, but we got there, we did it and it was — again, it’s just the nature of wrestling and it’s a wild world we live in.
Both Henry and Drake had tryouts with WWE. Henry got signed and went on to have a seven month run with the company under the name ‘Asher Hale’. Henry shared that Drake was not brought into WWE because of a knee issue that he says was not serious.
When Henry first started his stints with AEW, he did not think he’d get to team with JD and added that he heard it was Tony Khan’s idea to put them on TV together.
Oh, it’s awesome man. It’s so awesome [getting to be on this journey with JD Drake]. Again, that’s why we’ve been pushing it because we feel like it’s something special and you know, when I initially got signed [to WWE] — I don’t know how many people know this but Drake was there at the same tryout where I got signed and he didn’t make it because of medical reasons, a knee issue that, you know, of course ended up being nothing but anyway, he didn’t get signed and I got signed and that kind of broke up the team and it was sad to me that I wasn’t gonna get to experience it with my friend so then, you know, some time passes by. I’m doing my thing and he gets signed there [AEW] and then I get released and I come there. It’s like, but he’s doing The Wingmen so it’s like, ‘Ah crap’ but it’s not gonna happen but then, Tony Khan made it happen anyway so, as far as I know, it was Tony Khan’s idea. That’s what I was told and so that’s what I’m going with and I just think it’s really cool man and I didn’t think it was gonna happen and honestly, when it did happen, I just thought they were gonna pop us up on TV and that was gonna be that, surprise or whatever and then they actually — they did the graphic with our name on there, The Workhorsemen and I was like, ‘Ah man, this is so cool.’
He went on to further speak about his collective experiences within AEW and thinks things have gone well. He feels that he and JD Drake have more to offer as a duo. They’ve been pushing to get their tandem on a bigger platform for quite some time.
Yeah, so I’ve done a couple of things, obviously with [AEW] Dark and I wrestled [Eddie] Kingston shortly after my WWE release and then more recently, I wrestled Lee Moriarty and both of those matches got a good amount of praise which was always a great thing, you know, coming into a product like AEW. But this [competing against Danielson & Moxley] was different because for the longest time, we [Henry & JD Drake] have kind of been like, you know, pushing towards, nudging towards trying to do this on a bigger scale — Drake and I — because we’ve been teaming for years now and we just both feel like it’s a bigger deal for both of us when we’re together. We just have more to offer together and so [us] finally being able to do this on a big platform like AEW against two of the best wrestlers ever, it’s been wild, it’s been great. I have no complaints.
This coming week on Dynamite, Danielson and Moxley will be back in action at St. Patrick’s Day Slam. That program is also going to feature Thunder Rosa versus Britt Baker in a Steel Cage match for the AEW Women’s World Title.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Shining Wizards Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
