Triple H has revealed the advice he gave to Joe Hendry before the TNA World Champion made his surprise appearance at WrestleMania 41.
With the originally planned match between Randy Orton and Kevin Owens cancelled due to Owens requiring neck surgery, Orton announced on the go-home SmackDown that he would be appearing at WrestleMania to host an open challenge. After cutting a brief promo, Orton’s opponent was revealed to be Joe Hendry.
Orton defeated Hendry in 3 minutes after hitting an RKO on the TNA World Champion, delivering a second RKO after the bell for good measure. Much like the surprise appearance at the Royal Rumble, fans were very happy to see the Scottish star make an unannounced appearance.
Appearing at the WrestleMania post-show press conference, Triple H first elaborated on the decision to have Hendry be Owens’ replacement and how it was a stark contrast to the original plan:
“There was just so much anger and aggression there [between Orton and Owens]. You really needed something different to make that and I saw a lot of predictions of who it was going to be and what it was going to be, just incredibly difficult to try to put somebody in the spot to fill that in. It has to be a completely different scenario, and that’s where Joe Hendry came in.
To me, it was the perfect opportunity to put him in there. It allowed Randy to go from being the voices in his head, angry, crazy Randy Orton to I’m going to have some fun, I’m going to make this kid, I’m going to still showcase what I do, and I’m going to leave him better than he came in.
It was the right thing, right moment, right time in the right spot in a show that had a lot of incredible action, to still get incredible action, have a holy crap moment and sort of take you on that roller coaster ride of everything being up here and give me something different, something fun, something entertaining. This was the perfect spot for it.”
Triple H Tells Joe Hendry, “You Will Be Here Again”
Continuing, Triple H added that he expects to see Hendry at a future WrestleMania but there will be much more pressure next time:
“I will just say I love Joe Hendry. He’s a great talent, great entertainer, smart, respectful to what we do. He’s got a bright future. I was really happy that we could put him in this spot and showcase him for everybody on a bigger platform. I told him right before he walked out, ‘You will be here again, so enjoy this one because the pressure gets heavy from here. This will be the easiest WrestleMania you ever do, and you will do more.'”
In recent news, Joe Hendry has spoken about how a huge WWE star may be appearing at TNA Rebellion.
If you use any quotes from this article please credit the source and leave a h/t to ITR Wrestling.