The idea of appearing at Clash at the Castle in Scotland was addressed.
Joe Hendry’s current go-round in TNA/IMPACT has included a run as Digital Media Champion and as of this writing, he’s the longest-reigning champion in the belt’s history.
Another highlight of Hendry’s came on the May 3rd edition of TNA iMPACT when he gave a live musical performance and used the melodies of A.J. Styles’ ‘I Am’ theme and ‘Higher’ by Creed. Hendry explained to WhatCulture Wrestling that it was the most pressure he’s felt in a long time, but knew if it went well, whether it be for better or for worse, his career would never be the same.
Hendry shared that he initially turned the idea down because Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson did a live musical performance on the lead-up to WrestleMania XL. Hendry added that he spent $2,000 on the guitar he used.
For the live concert (I did in TNA), that is the most pressure I’ve felt in such a long time because here’s the thing, I hadn’t played acoustic guitar since 2015. So when I was asked to do that, I had to buy an acoustic guitar and learn how to play guitar properly again because I did the guitars in my entrance song. But I only do enough guitars to play the parts, do you know what I mean? So it’s like, I’ll literally learn, ‘What’s this solo again?’ And I’ll practice at my leisure when I’m sitting down in the studio where I can make unlimited mistakes but to actually be good enough to do a live concert? And so, the parody that we did of the Creed song as well, that song is quite a complexed song for one guitar, because you’ve got the lead riff and of course I’m like, how am I gonna play both at the same time? When Creed plays it, there’s like two guitars. So, this is all going through my head. But I knew in my heart that my career would never be the same again if that went well or badly.
When I was asked to do the concert, I initially said no, because that was one of the reasons. Because I was like, ‘The Rock just did this,’ and the Toronto segment, the original one — The Rock’s my favorite wrestler of all-time. That segment in Toronto is one of my favorite all-time segments and I just thought, if I had to go out there and sing a couple of songs, what can I do to even put this in the same conversation? And then the conversation developed and it turned out, ‘Well actually, we might be able to use a copyrighted song’ and then the conversation became, ‘Well, if we’re gonna do a copyrighted song, it has to be something that’s synonymous with wrestling. A band that everyone knows.’ So it had to be a Limp Bizkit or Evanescence or something like that and then Creed came up and then it was like, write, and then we got the hook with the, ‘Can you take me higher? Can you please get fired?’ Then we were like, ‘Okay, we might have something.’ But, I cannot tell you the pressure… I thought, what can I control? And I got, in my view, the best guitar money can buy. The best guitar that money can buy. It cost me like two-and-half grand. So beyond that, in my view, it’s just, oh, limited edition this and preference and all that, right? So it’s a Martin Guitar. It’s a solid one-piece Martin Guitar. In my view, I was like, you can’t get better… because you know when you see live music segments, a lot of them don’t sound brilliant. I don’t mean in wrestling, I mean in general. You’ll be watching a BBC concert or T in the Park or something and then something will just be off or something. So I was like, what can I control? So I’ll get the best guitar that I possibly can, and then so, I take the guitar with me and they wouldn’t let me take it on the plane. So I had to hand it over to them. My bags made it but my guitar didn’t and my guitar didn’t arrive on the day for rehearsals… and what people don’t know is I’ve got this food show, I’ve got matches to do, I’ve got this and the guitar’s not there. So we didn’t get the rehearsal the day before. So when the guitar arrived and this is when you should always invest because the guitar arrived. You think about it, it’d been in the subzero temperatures in the air. It’s been hot in the airport. It’s then in the Vegas heat. Open up the case, it was still in tune.
Drew McIntyre spoke highly of Hendry and said he’s deserved a big opportunity for a long time. Hendry was asked about the idea of appearing at WWE Clash at the Castle in Scotland.
He did not address that directly, but spoke about the WWE-TNA collaboration and threw praise and support behind Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace. He feels she’s the biggest star in TNA.
So, this is what I’ll say (about the idea of appearing at WWE Clash at the Castle in Scotland): Wrestling is at its best when anything is possible and anything can happen. It feels like we’re in a period of time in wrestling where absolutely anything can happen at any time. What do we know has happened? So, Jordynne Grace has appeared and has done phenomenally well and is challenging for the NXT Championship, and what I will say is I think that Jordynne is such an awesome representative of TNA. She’s someone that really inspires me. When I talk to — even wrestling students back home about getting better, I get them to rate themselves as wrestlers and I do the same thing. I rate myself and go, ‘What am I out of 10 on physique? What is my promo? What is my match quality?’ Rate myself on everything and then go, every three months or so, can I improve by one point? And so I feel like that’s the journey I’ve been on the last — well, I look at Jordynne and she is, to me, she is world-class in all areas. So I think that she is an awesome representative. I think she’s shown tremendous leadership and in my view, she’s the biggest star in the company, and she’s done an amazing job and she’s continuing to do an amazing job. So that’s all I’m gonna say about that is I’m supportive of what she’s doing as a colleague. I think it’s amazing that both companies are working together and no matter what happens and when it happens, whatever TNA wrestling asks me to do, I’ll be there.
On X, Xavier Woods mentioned that he’d like to head to TNA with Kofi Kingston and win the company’s Tag Team Titles. In addition to that, Woods noted that he’d like to record a song with Hendry. Hendry revealed that he’s already written the song.
As soon as he said that (Xavier Woods wants to do a song with Hendry), I wrote the song. So, I’ve written the song. It’s done. I haven’t recorded it yet. I’ve recorded a very quick demo. I think it’s very catchy. For this to actually happen, we need to make sure it’s something that our companies want to happen and you know what I mean? I don’t know how something like that would work. I guess I need to speak to my bosses at TNA and see if that is something we could do. Who knows? I don’t know. I think what’s really cool about the whole crossover is it’s just so new and exciting and people are just talking about it and so, to even talk to Xavier Woods about something like that, it’s so awesome…
TNA’s Jordynne Grace will have the opportunity to become NXT Women’s Champion when she challenges Roxanne Perez at Battleground. The match is being billed as one of the main events on the night.
There is going to be a review of Battleground here on POST Wrestling via the Poisonrana Podcast.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit WhatCulture Wrestling with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
