Indie star Simon Miller recently spoke with Fightful’s Corey Brennan on a number of topics including his feud with top TNA star Joe Hendry last year in the lead up to IMPACT Turning Point and the fans believing their animosity was real.
Miller said, “Yeah, look, I owe Joe a lot for that opportunity, right? We were coming in, TNA was coming in to the UK. They were working in Newcastle, which is like, What Culture HQ, and he just had this idea. And he was like, wouldn’t it be great if you could bring these two worlds together? I’m totally breaking what I said I’d never break now, but I have a feeling he’s going to do all right regardless. So I think we could talk about it. But the way that it all kind of kicked off is we played it as it was real, right? That’s when I flew up there and we had this big thing in the WhatCulture offices where we filmed it in the sense we wanted it to… We did a bunch of DMs and stuff. We wanted it to come across as real, but we assumed most people would be like, well, yeah. But no, no, no. What happened is everybody thought it was real, and I was getting DMs from wrestlers. Wrestlers and promoters go, why are you falling out with Joe Hendry? Because we both promised not to say anything, I was like, I don’t know, man, I was out of control. Then, I can’t remember what happened now. Then we dropped something and it was obvious, like, well, it’s not really. It was probably the graphic, like Impact and I aren’t going to go, oh, yeah, let these two proper people fight in a wrestling ring. So that’s why I think people got it. But I think because of that, we actually sort of, again, he’s the master of the Internet, right? I like to think I’ve got my own little place in that, too. So I think these two audiences coming together, we create a nice little niche for ourselve, and yeah, again, Joe didn’t have to offer me the opportunity, but he did. We went there. Again, as an absolute ball, I was told to go out there and be a bad guy. I think most people assumed that I was a happy, smiley guy on YouTube. He just wants to be the good guy. No, I want to be the dickhead. Of course I do. So that was awesome. So I got to do some promo time. Again, it was a proper old school. That’s what I was told to do, right? Yes, sir. No, sir. Everyone was really complimentary about that, too. So that was nice. You know, you got who’s who of wrestling back there. They’re going, oh, man, yeah. You know, way to get your home turf to boo you. It was just great.”
On Hendry’s success in TNA:
“I’m not surprised that Joe has got the traction that he has got. But I also am because I like to think he’s hit such a level that he deserves that kind of praise, too. Do you know what I mean? It’s like when The Rock first got into movies. Of course he could get into movies. He becomes the biggest movie star ever. You’re like, wait, what? How did that happen? I knew that he’d always make it to wherever the hell he wanted to make it. I did not think he’d have the fourth most watched WWE social clip of 2024. But again, I mean that as a compliment. Do you know what I mean? Of course he was going to do that because that’s how he… That’s how he sees things. So yeah, just all the best to him. When he walked out of NXT, I was like three in the morning. I popped my socks off. I was like, there you go. You get him, Joe”
On advice that Hendry gave him:
“Like I say, when I debuted in that Defiant match, I won’t tell that story because I don’t think it’s fair. But he was another guy that took me to one side. He gave me some damn good advice. Really, really good advice. And I put my foot in it by accident. He didn’t know me apart from that. Okay, it’s one of the guys that makes videos. He went out of his way to say, Simon, I would maybe approach this in a different way. I know it’s an accident, but, you know. So, yeah, you know, it’s not just that he has earned it from everything he’s put into wrestling. It’s the stuff he’s done outside of wrestling, too. So, yeah, I feel given that we’re in June now. So that was October, like six, seven months ago. I think it’s cool that I like to I’m going to pretend that I was the guy that launched him, which isn’t true at all. He probably did more for me to be completely honest. But hey, we take what we can. Got to do what you got to do in this industry, I tell you that much.”
You can check out Miller’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
