You may have noticed that I talk about Pro Wrestling a lot.
Today, I’d like to bring to your attention the Scottish musician-slash-Commonwealth Games Greco-Roman wrestler-slash-TNA Pro Wrestler Joe Hendry.
There’s one crucial piece of context about the running gag that is a central part of Joe Hendry’s entire Wrestling persona.
And that thing is this:
Say his name…
Video via Tenor.
…and he appears.
Which leads to him popping up in all sorts of weird situations are somebody does actually say his name.
Also, he writes and performs his own theme music and diss tracks directed at his opponents.
Joe Hendry is probably one of the best recent examples that the ones who go the farthest in Pro Wrestling aren’t necessarily the ones with the best technical skills, but the ones who are able to develop and present the most memorable characters.
In addition to being solid in the ring, Joe Hendry is also a relentless self-promoter. So much so that he was able to basically meme himself into outperforming musicians up to and including Taylor Swift on the UK charts in the spring of 2024.
He knows exactly what kind of character he’s playing. He knows exactly how to market that character. And he’s actually a capable musician, which circles back to the whole “knows exactly what kind of character he’s playing” thing. He knows exactly how to capitalise on writing goofy, catchy, easily-memeable songs to further his character.
And it’s working.
As of the end of summer 2024, he’s become the most popular wrestler in a company he doesn’t even work for!
In brief, WWE’s development brand NXT has been cross-promoting with TNA, a promotion that has carved out a pretty good niche for itself as a reliable third place under WWE and All Elite. While TNA is never going to surpass or even really compete with either WWE or All Elite, the promotion is pretty secure, given that it’s own by the same company that owns the network it airs on, and has established itself as a launchpad for rising wrestlers to get themselves noticed by either WWE or TNA.
This cross-promotion has seen Wrestlers for each promotion appearing on the other’s shows, leading to several TNA Wrestlers challenging for NXT titles and vice versa. Joe Hendry has easily become the most popular crossover Wrestler from TNA, getting basically unanimously cheered by the NXT audience and quickly getting launched into the NXT main event and contending (unsuccessfully as of now) for the NXT title, thanks in large part to getting the audience to buy in 12000% to his character.
As for his theme, it’s probably the most succinct example of why his character works so well — especially at a time when the consensus in the fanbase that the industry is plagued by generic, interchangeable, and forgettable theme songs. It’s catchy and easy to sing along with, the only lyrics that really matter are “I believe in Joe Hendry”, basically any given clip of the video is endearingly ridiculous and cheesy, but also makes a perfect meme.
So, yes, it’s not really hard to see why me, you, and everybody believes in Joe Hendry:
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