Joe Hendry on His Decision to Leave TNA for WWE & How He Tried To Get Match Against John Cena During Cena’s Retirement Tour

A recent episode of the Busted Open After Dark podcast featured former TNA talent and current WWE NXT Champion Joe Hendry as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Hendry’s thoughts about his time with TNA Wrestling and how he gave his all to the company.

“I will say this: I gave being TNA World Champion everything I — I gave everything to that company that I absolutely had.”

Hendry also gave his thoughts about going to WWE was his dream goal for his wrestling career.

“Absolutely. That’s the goal. Absolutely… I came to WWE because this was the dream…”

Hendry also gave his reasons for his decision to leave TNA and join WWE.

“This is genuinely what it was is I felt like I had achieved the goal at TNA and I felt like in order for me to grow, it was time. It was time. It wasn’t gonna be in a year. If I can say I feel I’ve done one thing well, it’s knowing when it’s time and it was finally time for me to make the move because I felt like I’d acquired enough skills to be successful here and now I’m just acquiring more skills at NXT. It was the right time to go.”

Hendry also gave his thoughts about how he tried to get a match against John Cena during Cena’s retirement tour but also did not want to push boundaries and “go into business” for himself.

“I tried. I tried (to make the match with John Cena happen) … So, this is interesting. It’s a tough game to play — that one — because there is you have to be bold but within the — there are guidelines that you must respect. What you don’t want to do in this business is to go into business for yourself, and so anything that I did to try and get that — for example, you remember when I did the billboard? So I put my face up on the billboard next to a WWE show when they were in Glasgow. That, to me, was something that was fun that didn’t interfere with business. I felt I gave everything that I could that was respectful. I didn’t wanna make it about me, because it’s John Cena’s retirement tour and I was very honored to be a part of that last show. I can’t tell you how much it meant for me to be one of the roster members to walk down to be there in John’s last moments in the ring. To have a moment to talk to him and I came back through the curtain. The advice that he gave me at Royal Rumble and then to tell me that he felt I took that advice at WrestleMania and executed it well, and then to be in the locker room when he made his final speech to the locker room, I was so proud and grateful to be a part of those moments. I’m a great believer that things are supposed to work out the way that they work out and I’ll be completely honest with you, I said if I get that match, it’s on me. If I don’t get that match, it’s on me. Perhaps I didn’t take myself to where I needed to get to to guarantee that match, to secure it. But maybe, that’s what made me regroup and go, you know what? We’re going back to basics. I’m going training every day, and the amount that I’ve advanced in a six-month period, I’m so excited for the fans to continue to see this. I just continue to get better and maybe if I’d just got the John Cena match, maybe that ego would have came back and it’s like, well, everything I manifest comes true. Maybe I needed to not get the John Cena match to get what’s gonna come next.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2