Chris Hero recounts moments from his time with NXT.
After nearly four years following his first stint with WWE, Chris Hero f.k.a. Kassius Ohno made his return to the company. In early 2017, he appeared at an NXT TV taping and confronted then-NXT Champion Robert Roode.
They would go on to have a match for the title weeks later. Hero recounted that return during his chat with The It List Podcast. He shared that the angle with Roode was shot multiple times. When they came to the backstage area, they were sent back out to reshoot it.
I remember when I came back to NXT in 2017, I came out to do this angle with this guy Bobby Roode and then we did it and we came to the back and they go, ‘No, no, no. We want you to go do it again. Do this.’ So we went out and we did it again and we came back and they go, ‘No. We still want you to go and do this.’ So I remember running out there for the third time and looking at the people and I was just like, I don’t know… And you have to act like it’s for the first time, whatever and it feels weird and is weird, but there are production ways to go around this and make it look like it’s brand-new for the first time and it’s whatever.
Fast forward to 2018, Hero stated that when he rammed his knee against steel steps in a match on NXT is how he developed ‘jelly knee’.
I had one of those on my knee at some point in 2002 all the way through 2003 because we wear kneepads and we sweat and it’s like, it would heal… I called it a ‘juicy knee’. It burned like hell. It’s just a surface wound but man, it sucked. I was trying to do a fancy spear and I jumped off the second rope and went running and I tripped and buried my knee in the mat and my knee pads had kind of slid down so I just crushed my knee. Now, I feel — and I guess you can’t really see it but I have jelly knee from a match in (2018). It’s a jelly knee and I was wrestling this guy named Adam Cole who is in AEW currently. Had a very fun match, he’s one of my favorite people I’ve ever wrestled and he pushed me into the ring steps from behind and because of my height, just the top of my knee just crushed into the steel steps and it was indented and then eventually, it came back but now it’s just jelly knee. It’s gelatinous.
Hero is the current matchmaker for the West Coast Pro Wrestling promotion in California.
There are two interviews with Hero here on POST Wrestling via Andrew Thompson Interviews. The first can be found by clicking on the highlighted platform names.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The It List Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
