Joe Hendry built the most recognizable piece of his act out of a British sitcom boss and a talk show couch. The Raw star traced the origin of his on-screen persona during a SummerSlam weekend sitdown with Peter Rosenberg on Cheap Heat, recorded live in Minneapolis.
Hendry said the turn to camera started as something far smaller than what fans see now, and that the crowd reaction is what inflated it.
It started off as a subtle turn to the camera. I used to watch the UK Office a lot, and I thought if David Brent was a wrestler, that’d be something he would do… In my original version of the music video, it was just a head tilt, and then it became more accentuated over time based on audience reaction.
The second half of the formula came from press tour energy rather than anything on screen.
It was basically a combination of David Brent and Tom Cruise, I’m talking jump-up-on-the-couch Tom Cruise. I thought, ‘What happens if those two guys meet?'
That camera turn has since outgrown Hendry himself. Randy Orton mimicked it during their WrestleMania 41 encounter in a moment that circulated widely on social media, and it remains the shorthand fans use for his entrance.
Hendry Answers For A Divided Segment
The character breakdown came in the same conversation where Hendry addressed the backlash to his July 27 Raw concert segment. That segment paired him with Danhausen, the Minihausens and dancers before Ryan Garcia smashed a guitar across his back and aligned with The Judgment Day.
Hendry told Rosenberg that everyone involved was chasing entertainment, and that some swings connect while others don’t. The Brent and Cruise answer explains the register he has been working in since the beginning, comedy first, with the reaction dictating how far to push it.
Hendry joined the Raw roster after WrestleMania 42 in April, following a roughly two-month NXT Championship reign that ended at Stand & Deliver. He wrestled Bron Breakker on the August 3 episode of Raw in Des Moines and came up short.
