Joe Hendry has revealed that a former WWE star was the person who convinced him to use his real name for his wrestling career. Speaking on TMZ Inside The Ring, the current NXT Champion explained that he initially questioned whether his birth name had enough “ring” to it.
Hendry was trained by Big Damo (formerly Killian Dain in WWE), who advised him against rushing to create a character name if he didn’t have a strong concept ready.
“I was trained by someone who’s called Killian Dain in WWE… Big Damo now….He was like, ‘Look, just use your own name because you don’t have anything that you’re super set on right now. Rather than rushing that or being something that you don’t want to use, just use your real name just now,'” Hendry recalled.
‘Rhyme With Almost Any Song’
Hendry admitted that he was skeptical at first but later realized the versatility of his name, especially when it came to his musical parodies.
“I remember at the time thinking, ‘Oh, does Joe Hendry have much of a ring to it?’ But then over time, I realized that I could say my name in different ways to rhyme in songs,” Hendry said. “So there was Joe Hen, Joe Hendry… I can rhyme it with almost any song. So that really helped with my viral videos. It gave me much more options when I was doing the viral parody songs.”
He also noted a correction for his Wikipedia page, stating that his legal name is Joe, not Joseph. “For a long time on Wikipedia, it was saying Joseph Hendry… but my legal name is actually Joe.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit TMZ Inside The Ring with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
