Joe Hendry chats return to IMPACT Wrestling and looks back at his WWE Raw appearance.
In late 2014, after Miro (Rusev) won the WWE United States Championship, there was a celebration held for him on Monday Night Raw. Alongside him was C.J. Perry (Lana), Joe Hendry and the late Adrian ‘Lionheart’ McCallum.
Hendry and McCallum served as ‘representatives of Russia’ who were there to formally congratulate Miro on his title win. Hendry recounted this appearance on Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore Podcast. He remembered receiving his initial lines but as the day went on, it was decided by Vince McMahon to give Hendry more to say.
He had previously memorized what he was going to say but when additional lines were added on, as Hendry was walking to the ring, he forgot them. He was credited by Brian ‘Road Dogg’ James for holding the crowd while he was speaking to the audience. Hendry stated that he got away with not remembering exactly what he was supposed to say.
At the end of [2014], I was Rusev’s lawyer [on Monday Night Raw] so I had to — I remember one of the producers says, ‘Can you do a Russian accent?’ And I was like, ‘Of course’ and I had no idea how to do a Russian accent and what actually happened, they hired someone specifically for the role but whichever referee it was got confused and didn’t notice so he just — a referee came up to me and said, ‘Bring your red tie tomorrow…’ And I was like, ‘Red tie?’ He was like, ‘Yeah. You were told to bring a red tie’ and I was like, ‘Red tie?’ So I brought a red tie and he was like, ‘Where are my Russians at? Have you got the red tie?’ And I was like, oh, that must be me and I put my hand up and there’s actually a guy behind me who had been paid specifically to do the job who had shaved his head for the role, and I ended up taking his spot, but I didn’t know it ‘till after. I went in the ring, my thinking was, so we both had lines and I knew, I was like, Vince [McMahon] is gonna let me do it if I memorize it right now. Everybody else will read it from the paper so I just literally just went in the zone, look at it over and over and over again until I had it without looking at the paper and there’s a bunch of us and they sent us to the ring and they said to me, ‘You go first’ and I read it out and they said, ‘Yeah, Vince wants you to do it.’ So he didn’t even listen to the other people… So I was like, right, sweet. So that was pretty cool. I was absolutely terrified. I went out on Raw and that was the one time I was kind of like, oh man, I’m freaking out because apparently, the writer told me that Vince said, he was like, ‘Give that kid more lines’ so they came with more lines so I was like, oh man. So I went to the ring and as I’m walking to the ring, I’m looking around and I’ve just forgotten everything, I’ve forgotten everything. I’m on Monday Night Raw and I’m like, you’ve asked for this opportunity and here you are and you can’t remember a God damn thing. The second part of the lines were inside the folder but I couldn’t open the folder until halfway through so I’m looking around like this and I’m just looking around because I don’t know what I’m gonna say and I’m looking around for a long period of time and I just waited until it came. I eventually spoke into the mic and I did my bit and when I got back, Road Dogg was just like, ‘The way that you held that crowd was just…’ [Hendry laughed]. So I got away with that. But yeah, that happened, that was pretty cool. Got a pop for that.
Present day, Hendry is back with IMPACT Wrestling and his first match back was a part of the Call Your Shot Gauntlet at Bound For Glory.
He detailed how the conversations with Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore picked up and it stemmed from D’Amore being tagged by Twitter users so he could notice a photo of Hendry.
It was crazy because Scott [D’Amore] and I had spoke before but the thing that actually got Scott’s attention again was after the Ring of Honor stuff, I was doing a show down in Newcastle, England and I was about to leave and the photographer goes, ‘Oh, we didn’t get to do photos’ and you know when you got your gear off, you’re back in your clothes and you’re like, ah man, I just wanna go home and I thought, no, you know what? I’m a professional. I’ve been paid to do this and photos is a part of that. Let me go put my gear back on. So I go put my gear back on, come back, takes a photo and I’m like, oh, that actually turned out pretty well and I tweeted it. I said, ‘Dear major promotions, you’ve left some money on the table’ and hundreds of people tagged Scott and IMPACT and that was the day that Scott was like, ‘All right, let’s talk’ and that’s how it happened so it was just the smallest of things. If I just left, who knows? If I didn’t get those photos, who knows? So yeah, it’s just crazy how life works out sometimes.
IMPACT is headed towards their ‘Over Drive’ event on November 18th where Josh Alexander will defend the IMPACT World Title against Frankie Kazarian.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the House of Hardcore Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
