Triple H sees ‘bright future’ for TNA star Joe Hendry

Paul “Triple H” Levesque sees a bright future ahead for TNA star Joe Hendry — one that will include more WrestleMania moments.

The TNA World Champion made his surprise WrestleMania debut by answering Randy Orton’s open challenge on Sunday night. It was originally supposed to be Orton vs. Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 41, but Owens had to be pulled from the show due to a neck injury that requires surgery.

Explaining his thought process at the post-show press conference, Levesque said he chose Hendry as Orton’s opponent to provide a fun moment that was different from the originally intended Orton vs. Owens story. A late replacement was not going to match the intensity WWE had been building for the Orton vs. Owens feud, so they went in a different direction entirely.

“In this case with Randy Orton, the storyline, the angst of where we were with Kevin Owens piledriving Randy Orton — him being out for months, him finally coming back. There was just so much anger and aggression there. You really needed something different to make that,” Levesque said. “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. And to me 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 and I’m going to make this kid and 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 rollercoaster ride of everything being up here and give me something different, something fun, something entertaining. This was the perfect spot for it.”

The match went three minutes before Orton won with an RKO out of nowhere. He and Hendry then shared a moment of respect after the match before Orton had fun by dropping Hendry with another RKO.

Levesque praised the 36-year-old Hendry as a great talent and entertainer, sharing that he told Hendry before the match that Hendry will be back at WrestleMania again in the future.

“And I will just say: I love Joe Hendry. He’s a great talent, great entertainer, smart, respectful to what we do. Like, he’s got a bright future,” Levesque said. “And I was really, really happy that we could put him in this spot and showcase him for everybody on a bigger platform in the world. I told him, right before he walked out, I said, ‘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.'”

Hendry appeared with his TNA World Championship belt at WrestleMania, but it was not on the line. He has a title defense coming up at this Sunday’s TNA Rebellion pay-per-view, facing off against Frankie Kazarian and NXT wrestler Ethan Page in a three-way match.

Over the past year, Hendry’s “I Believe in Joe Hendry” theme music has gone viral on social media, helping to grow his popularity with wrestling fans. He had an NXT run in 2024 and worked his first WWE main roster match this February as a surprise Royal Rumble entrant. These appearances have been able to happen due to WWE and TNA Wrestling’s partnership.