Joe Hendry recently met with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes.
While contracted with Ring of Honor in 2020, Hendry learned that the world had shut down due to the COVID pandemic, putting practically all wrestling on hiatus until further notice. At one point, feeling his career as a professional wrestler was over, Hendry began to focus on rebuilding himself for his eventual comeback to the ring, with some inspiration from a previous WWE Champion.
He said, “Mark Haskins and I were flying out to wrestle The Briscoes. Me, Mark and Vicky Haskins all got on the plane at Heathrow to Las Vegas. Everything was fine. When we got off the plane, Mark just shouted, ‘The world’s shut down!’ We went to the hotel and I was told that if I didn’t get a flight home there was a very real chance I was going to be stuck in America. My dog was at home, so I had to leave, and that was my Ring of Honor run over. I had just started to build up a bit of steam and that was it done. And then wrestling was taken away from me for two years, no momentum, no leverage, and I had to find a way to get back.”
“I started to accept that wrestling might be over, and I think sometimes you have to let go of a dream to actually achieve it. I feel like I personally and professionally had a couple of rock bottom moments around that time, and I feel like I needed that to build myself back up. I got super into weightlifting programmes, powerlifting and bodybuilding. I bulked up to 265 pounds and I would work out for two hours every day because I bought all the gym equipment. That’s all I was doing, just working out. In the background I was watching old WWF stuff that I’d never seen before.
“I was watching the rise of Sycho Sid and I thought this guy kicks ass. I thought I’m just going to be Sid if he was in the modern era, with the Joe Hendry character. I took a little bit of that influence with my moveset, doing more power stuff. That influence in-ring has brought me to where I am today.”
