Joe Hendry Opens Up About Winning NXT Championship

Hendry is the new champion.

The vacant NXT Championship was up for grabs in a Ladder match in the main event of the February 3rd NXT on The CW. The following names competed in the bout: Ricky Saints, Joe Hendry, Keanu Carver, Jackson Drake, Sean Legacy, Shiloh Hill, and Dion Lennox.

Emerging victorious as the new NXT Champion was Joe Hendry. Fresh off his victory, Hendry joined Bully Ray on Busted Open After Dark and opened up about his title win.

“I’m feeling so many different emotions. I have so much to say, and I will do my best to get it out here coherently, but… in my life, we have different goals, different challenges and this particular championship means so much to me. This championship represents what the last six, eight months here full-time at the Performance Center has been for me. I made the choice to come here to WWE and I made the choice to come and train at NXT. I get in the ring every day with those top-level, first-class athletes and I knew I had to push my cardio and my conditioning to a new level and I knew I just had to keep acquiring new skills and there were days when it was just so tough and I just felt like I was just pushing things forward inch by inch and there were moments where I was frustrated, I wanted to progress and then, things just started to click, and I started to learn more and more and more and when you’re around this environment at the P.C. every day, you can’t help but get better, and that was my only goal, was just to get as good as I could possibly be at professional wrestling because the last couple of years was a marketing exercise for me, right? It was to tell the world who Joe Hendry is and now, the journey was for me to step up to a championship-caliber athlete that can go to the very top of this business and in order to do that, I had to truly humble myself and I’ve been training every day, giving absolutely everything, and you know, to have that goal realized and actualized in this championship title that’s been held by some of the most prestigious names in the business. I’m so honored and privileged to represent this brand.”

The title win was Hendry’s first in WWE. While he was with TNA, he held the TNA World Championship for 126 days.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit Busted Open After Dark with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.