This Sunday, September 1st 2024, the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado hosts WWE’s developmental brand NXT’s 5th Premium Live Event™️ of the year in the form of No Mercy, the 15th overall event under the name and only the second time NXT has held the event. The show has 6 matches on the card, featuring 5 championship matches and a big singles match between former friends turned bitter rivals. The event also marks the second NXT PLE to feature crossover from other American wrestling promotion, TNA, as one of their most popular stars and social media sensation Joe Hendry challenges NXT Champion Ethan Page for his title. Following the success of TNA Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace having an incredible match against NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez at NXT: Battleground back in June, as well as several NXT talent appearing on TNA PPV’s in recent months, it only made sense that more TNA talent would appear, and it only made more sense that NXT would heavily use a man who’s popularity has grown to high heights.
The first match I’ll cover is the 22nd NXT North American Champion “The Ruler” Oba Femi defending his championship for the 10th time as he faces “The Don of NXT” Tony D’Angelo, and at the time of Sunday, Oba will hit 235 days as champion, only 35 days away from breaking the all time record for longest North American Championship reign currently held by Wes Lee, a man Oba defeated to retain at the last NXT PLE, Heatwave. Can The Ruler take one step closer to making history, or will his title reign be sleeping with the fishes at the hands of The Don?
Oba Femi is an absolute beast, dude, a 6ft 6, 310lbs monster from Nigeria with an incredibly bright future, he’s got the look, he’s got the promo ability, he’s got the AURA and despite having less than 2 years experience in wrestling, man oh man he very much has that covered too, bringing an intensity and explosiveness that only a big boi of his style can, only being 26 years old and rapidly improving with each match, there’s no way this man isn’t a future star. His great match catalogue despite only being a consistent fixture on TV since December of last year is insane too. It’s genuinely unheard of for someone to be this good this quickly, and NXT officials clearly see it too, strapping him up with the North American Title in only his 5th televised match! For most wrestlers, it’s a long hard road to championship glory, but not for Oba, instead he threw, slammed, struck and powerbombed to hell all who stood in his way to become champion in record time and assert himself as The Ruler of NXT, a man who seeks out challengers who he deems most worthy to present a worthwhile challenge to him, just so he can put them right back down with brute force. And then there’s his challenger, The Don of NXT: Tony D’Angelo, a full on Italian-American mafia mob boss with an amateur wrestling background, and the head of The D’Angelo Family, with his Underboss Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo, his Consigliere Luca Crusifino and the money handler Adriana Rizzo, all wrestlers, but all with their important roles within The Family. Big Tony fully leans into the character, wearing velvet tracksuits in his entrance and in matches, but keeping up appearances in fancy suits when handling business outside the ring, which he tends to do in his family owned business, his sacred restaurant, where Tony likes to hold meetings with his family as well as sitdowns with his opponents, if invited by The Don, of course. And just like any good Don, Tony D also just casually… f*cking kills people! (allegedly, for legal reasons) If anyone causes too much of a problem for The D’Angelo Family, they get whacked (allegedly, for legal reasons). I mean when the No Quarter Catch Crew faction wanted rid of their leader, they hired The D’Angelo Family to deal with that problem (allegedly, for legal reasons). Tony has murdered many a man in his time, though it’s never been proven so maybe he hasn’t, brother!
The Don is a former 2 time NXT Tag Team Champion with Stacks, challenged for the NXT Title at the brands biggest show of the year Stand & Deliver this year, he took the NXT career of NXT legend Tommaso Ciampa out for a ride in 2022, and most recently is a former NXT Heritage Cup Champion, Tony’s done a lot, and now the North American Championship is in his sights, and if you don’t think Big Tony is capable of taking down Oba, you can fuggedaboutit 🤌🤌!
As you can likely tell, Tony D’Angelo & Oba Femi are two completely different types of wrestlers and people, but one thing they agree on is they don’t take kindly to disrespect, taking their roles as The Don and The Ruler respectably seriously, so when Oba interrupted and took over Tony’s backstage promo after the latter lost the Heritage Cup, The Don took great offense to this and returned the favour the next week, interrupting Oba’s promo before proceeding to drop the champion in such a way we’ve never seen, for the first time the undefeated champ looked vulnerable as he ran into someone who can match his power. In the final episode of NXT before No Mercy, Oba showed the ultimate sign of disrespect to Tony by showing up at The Don’s family restaurant uninvited, intimidating Tony’s staff and customers. When Big Tony arrived at the restaurant, he found Oba sat at the head of The Don’s table, the two exchanged words and left each other with parting messages ahead of their match this Sunday, with Tony stating he intends to prove the undefeated North American Champion is mortal, while Oba simply stated many have tried, all have failed and that Tony will be no different. With all of Tony’s accolades and his ability, he certainly poses a serious threat to the North American Title reign of Oba Femi, which is the exact type of challenge the confident Ruler of NXT craves.
From the men’s North American Championship, we now move onto the match all about the NXT Women’s North American Championship (quite the mouthful) which features the 1st Champion Kelani Jordan making her 4th title defence in her 80+ day reign as champion as she takes on Wendy Choo. This match is interesting because of the fact that Kelani Jordan had her first televised NXT match on the May 9th 2023 episode of NXT: LVLUP, and who was her first ever opponent? Wendy Choo. Choo would pick up the victory in that match, but to say both women are in completely different places than they were 15 months ago would be quite the understatement. Kelani first signed to WWE after she impressed officials in the 2022 SummerSlam tryout, Kelani entered the 2023 women’s NXT Breakout tournament, the same tournament the previously mentioned Oba Femi had won in the men’s version, and the same tournament current NXT Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez had won in 2022, as well as current SmackDown superstar and former NXT Champion Carmelo Hayes in 2021, so the tournament is a proven success to introduce new stars. Kelani made it to the finals but ultimately fell to the tournament winner Lola Vice, but despite the loss for Kelani, I think this was the moment she opened a lot of people’s eyes to her capabilities, and all 3 of her matches in the tournament were all the top 3 longest matches too, showing that NXT officials trusted her enough to give her the time to prove herself in the ring, so despite not winning the tournament, she had instead earned the trust and belief of NXT to perform at a higher level. Over the next few months Kelani Jordan would be given several big opportunities, like participating in the Women’s Iron Survivor match at NXT: Deadline in December of 2023, and then winning a 6 woman tag match at NXT’s biggest show of the year, Stand & Deliver, the same show that would also begin to carve out Kelani’s future, as this was where the creation of the NXT Women’s North American Championship was announced. The first champion would be determined in a 6 woman ladder match at NXT Battleground, the same way they crowned the first men’s champion in Adam Cole back in 2018. Kelani qualified for the ladder match by defeating Wren Sinclair, and then what was generally considered an upset, Kelani won the title, defeating Sol Ruca, Michin, Lash Legend, Jaida Parker and Fallon Henley. The win was generally considered an upset as I think people were more expecting someone like Sol Ruca or maybe Lash Legend to win as they were more established stars in NXT, or maybe even Michin, a main roster wrestler who never held a title in NXT during her tenure there and was back to right that wrong. But realistically when I think about it, considering the title was created with the idea of creating more opportunities for those still on the rise in the women’s division, Kelani Jordan was a great choice for a first champion, and now as champion, a big part of her character is feeling the need to add prestige to a championship with no lineage to live up to, which she has begun in successful defences against Michin, Tatum Paxley and most notably, in an incredible match against Sol Ruca at NXT: Heatwave, and now at No Mercy, she defends against her first ever televised opponent, Wendy Choo. Wendy has had a drastically different journey since that first match with Kelani, as shortly after the match, she teamed with Kelani to give the rookie her first televised victory, but this turned out to be Wendy’s last match for almost a year after suffering an unfortunate injury. Wendy was beloved by the NXT faithful as a comedic character, a woman who was tired… all the time, she walked to the ring with her big pillow and her big cup all while dressed and wrestled in a onesie, and the people loved her for it! Despite the silliness of it all, Wendy can go in the ring and has told some fun stories, like helping Dakota Kai believe in friendship again! Wendy is part of the reason Damage CTRL exists on the main roster if you look at it that way! Because of this, her injury was extremely unfortunate, but she returned earlier this year in a series of vignettes, all showing her waking up, as if she had just been in a long slumber rather than injured, which is pretty funny and fitting, the video packages went from her snoring, to her alarm going off, to her getting up and stretching, to her going into the bathroom, all without showing her face, because in the final video, when she looked in the mirror, the camera finally showed Wendy with dark make-up and the screen shattering as she was revealed, signifying a darker, more nightmarish side to Wendy that nobody had expected. She’s sleepy and it’s everyone’s problem! Admittedly the character shift has been a bit of a mixed bag, Wendy’s great and her added aggressiveness in the ring to go with her new character is something she excels at, but at the same time, it’s kinda hard to take a character like hers seriously as a heel, or villain.
Wendy started to form a partnership with Tatum Paxley, a woman who also has a bit of a spooky character, and Tatum was challenging Kelani for her title, but when she came up short, Wendy betrayed and attacked Tatum, seemingly only using her to get herself closer to Kelani and her championship. Kelani doesn’t back down from anyone and welcomes all challengers, including Wendy for No Mercy. This character trait was proven when Kelani allowed Wendy to choose an opponent for her on this weeks episode of NXT, and Wendy chose TNA’s Rosemary, another spooky demonic character who Wendy wanted to use to weaken Kelani ahead of the title match on Sunday. I like the character trait of Wendy using other spooky wrestlers to get closer to what she wants. Can Kelani continue to raise the prestige of her title and retain, or will Wendy’s character transformation be justified and she finally wins a championship?
The third match to go over is the NXT Tag Team Championship match between new champs Chase University’s Andre Chase & Ridge Holland defending their titles for the first time in their 19 day reign against the team they defeated for the championships less than 3 weeks ago, Nathan Frazer and Axiom. Fraxiom have been one of my favourite teams this year, and it’s impressive impressive because of how new a team they are, only really beginning to team up at the start of this year, having a great performance in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Tournament, making it to the semi-finals before losing to the Wolfdogs of Baron Corbin & Bron Breakker, a team Nathan & Axiom would have an amazing trilogy with resulting in Fraxiom capturing tag team gold. But things aren’t all perfect in the world of Nathan Frazer & Axiom, there have been very heavy hints for months of a potential betrayal, with fans expecting Frazer to be the one to pull the trigger, and considering the British star was trained by the legend Seth Rollins, I’d be more surprised if Nathan didn’t have a betrayal bone in his body! Honestly though I hope a betrayal doesn’t happen anytime soon, Nathan & Axiom have great chemistry as a tag team both in the ring and in segments, and even outside the ring, I found it very funny seeing their back and forth tweets during the England vs Spain Euros final, though Spain beating England would be a pretty funny reason for Nathan to betray Axiom!
For the champions, Chase University, shortened to Chase U, they are a faction representing an educational university lead by the dean of the school Andre Chase, with many faction members such as Ridge Holland, his tag team champion partner, Thea Hail, Duke Hudson, Riley Osborne and many unnamed students attending Chase U to learn about wrestling under the guidance of Andre Chase! Chase U took Ridge into the school to help him find redemption, Ridge has had many struggles in his career involving legitimately accidentally injuring other wrestlers, most notably Big E in early 2022, who still hasn’t returned to the ring, and while E doesn’t fault Ridge, it has become an important characteristic for Ridge, wracked with guilt over his prior recklessness, and even accidentally inflicting injuries in storylines, he went to Chase U to find his place in the wrestling world again and redeem himself, which ultimately he was able to do by defeating Fraxiom with Andre to become champion for the first time in his career. Andre Chase had a redemption story that he needed, and honestly still needs to follow too, Chase is now a 2 time NXT Tag Team Champion, having previously held the titles with other Chase U student Duke Hudson, but they only held the titles for 3 weeks and lost them in their first defence back to the team they defeated in Tony D & Stacks, the same position the team is in again now going into the first title defence against former champs Fraxiom. This is all after Andre Chase almost had the school completely shut down for bankruptcy after Andre went broke betting on his student Thea Hail to win the NXT Women’s Championship last year, as when Thea was on the brink of injury in the title match, Andre threw in the towel to save his prized student from any further suffering, despite the fact it cost him everything at the time, his school and his tag team championship, so Chase bringing the titles home to the university was his form of redemption, but now he has to prove he can successfully defend the championships. Can Chase U do it? Or will Fraxiom get their titles back? Will a long teased betrayal take place? There’s a lot of interesting questions going into this championship match!
From a tag team match with heavy hints towards betrayal, we move onto the next match between former tag team partners, broken apart by one member's shocking and unexpected betrayal, it’s Wes Lee vs Zachary Wentz. Unlike with Nathan & Axiom’s heavy hints, it was never even implied there was trouble brewing within the group known as The Rascalz, made up of Wes Lee, TNA wrestlers Zachary Wentz and Trey Miguel and freelancer Myron Reed (though the latter is not involved in this current storyline due to not being signed to either promotion), but the lack of tension made it all the more shocking when Wes suddenly betrayed Zachary & Trey after a brief stint as a trio in both NXT & TNA, and immediately after Wes and Zachary, known as a team as MSK, lost a tag team championship match to Fraxiom. The Rascalz were a group made up of these 4 men before Dezmond Xavier, Wes Lee’s name at the time, and Zachary Wentz even got signed to WWE. Dez & Wentz made it to WWE NXT at the end of 2020and were given the names Wes Lee & Nash Carter respectably, and they together as a team were chosen to help revive NXT’s struggling tag division at the time, Wes & Nash debuted in the 2021 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Tournament as MSK and went on to win the whole thing, and after the tag champions were forced to vacate the titles due to an injury within the team, MSK went on to win the vacated championships and held down the division for the next year, becoming 2 time tag team champions, but their second reign was cut short after Nash Carter was released by WWE due to a real life controversy with his ex-girlfriend, but that’s not really worth getting into. Carter returned to TNA under his old name Zachary Wentz to reunite with Trey Miguel as The Rascalz, while Wes Lee was left in NXT alone without tag partners for the first time, a tag team wrestler literally forced into the singles division and it was up to him to sink or swim on his own. After some struggles, Wes Lee ultimately swam, winning the vacant NXT North American Championship, the second time Wes had won a vacant NXT title, but this time on his own, and this championship victory marked the first singles championship Wes had ever won in his entire 11 year career. Wes Lee went on to become the greatest NXT North American Champion in the titles history, holding the title for a record (for now) 269 days, with 11 successful defences, the most of any North American Champion. After he lost the title and failed to regain it in a triple threat match, Wes tried to aim for the NXT Championship, but lost to then-champion Carmelo Hayes, and then lost to Ilja Dragunov in a number 1 contenders match, Wes left NXT to reevaluate his career, but later returned to challenge Dominik Mysterio for the North American Championship, but was heartbreakingly pulled from the match due to requiring back surgery, a legitimate injury Wes had to leave to deal with, expected out 8-12 months. Wes remarkably made his return just 5 months later, which was insane and immediately challenged Oba Femi to a North American Championship match, also involving Joe Coffey, where Oba retained. Wes was granted a one on one rematch with Oba under the condition that if he lost, he could never challenge for the championship again while Oba had the title, and Wes lost, again. Wes was ready to quit NXT for good this time after suffering so many crushing losses and setbacks, but before he could make it official, he was interrupted by Zachary Wentz & Trey Miguel, crossing over from TNA into NXT to give Wes some direction in his career and reform The Rascalz as a trio, and then the previously mentioned short reunion and betrayal by Wes occurred! Wes & Wentz failed to regain the NXT Tag Titles that they never lost and that was the final straw for Wes, I mean the previous straws had quite literally already broken the Kardiak Kid’s back, so was this turn really so sudden? Wes never wanted the pity he felt the Rascalz were offering him, especially not from Wentz, who Wes must have felt abandoned him by getting released and going back to TNA, winning the TNA World Tag Titles with Trey, something Wes & Wentz were never able to do as a tag team. Wes feels he doesn’t need Wentz anymore, and in some ways he’s proven he doesn’t with his accolades since going singles, but at the same time, if it wasn’t for Wentz reappearing in the life of Wes, he would have quit NXT, which only lead to pain and heartbreak for Zachary Wentz, a cruel case of irony for the former friends turned bitter rivals as they head into their match at No Mercy.
The 20th NXT Women’s Champion in history Roxanne Perez makes her 7th title defence at No Mercy as she defends her title against the impressive Jaida Parker. Jaida signed to WWE in 2022 as a result of a successful tryout she attended earlier in that same year. She signed to WWE with no prior wrestling experience, but that didn’t stop her from making an impression, debuting on TV only a year later, despite losing in the first round of the Breakout tournament, she became a consistent feature on TV, joining the OTM faction and having her first PLE match only a few months later. Jaida’s next big opportunity was in the ladder match to crown the first Women’s North American Champion, and despite not winning, she had another great performance, proving herself to be very consistent. Jaida entered a rivalry with Michin, a feud that gave Jaida the biggest win of her career as she defeated the main roster superstar in a Street Fight. Just about a month later, Jaida won a 6 woman gauntlet eliminator match, outlasting 5 other wrestlers to become the number 1 contender to Roxanne Perez’s NXT Women’s Championship, earning her first one on one match for a singles championship in her very short career. Roxanne Perez. Please clap. Roxanne is in the middle of her second NXT Women’s title reign and over the last couple of years since her debut, she has become one of my favourites. At just 22 years old, Roxanne has proven herself in her 6 year career with her incredible in-ring skills and character and has proven to be living up to her nickname The Prodigy. She achieved success early outside of WWE, becoming the first ever ROH Women’s World Champion so it didn’t take long for WWE to come knocking at her door to sign her in early 2022, one of her biggest dreams achieved so young, and if that doesn’t make you feel inadequate then I don’t know what will! Changing her name from Rok-C to Roxanne Perez, it didn’t take her long to make a name for herself, winning the first Women’s Breakout Tournament by defeating Tiffany Stratton in the finals, earning herself an NXT Women’s Championship at any time of her choosing. She then shortly after won the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships with best friend Cora Jade and cashed in her NXT Women’s Title opportunity the next week, only to lose due to a betrayal by Jade. Perez and Jade feuded for a few months, trading victories back and forth, all leading to the first ever Iron Survivor match, a 25 minute time limit multi-person match with the objective to score as many victories as possible within the time limit, with the winner getting a title opportunity, which Roxanne would win by last pinning Cora. With Cora Jade in her rear view, Roxanne challenged NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose just 3 days after winning the Iron Survivor, and she defeated Rose to become the new champion! Roxanne held the title for 109 days with 2 successful title defences, most notably one defence against wrestling legend Meiko Satomura. Roxanne lost her title in a 6 woman ladder match at the 2023 Stand & Deliver event to Indi Hartwell, never being pinned to lose her championship. Over the next 6 months or so, Roxanne was in various feuds and stories, losing some big matches and all these losses eventually racked up for Roxanne and she slowly began to take her frustration out on others, frequently getting into backstage fights with anyone who provoked her. Roxanne took this a step further when she viciously attacked Arianna Grace after their match, fully giving into her anger and letting it consume her into showing a much more aggressive side to herself. The Prodigy used this new found side to herself to win a number 1 contenders battle royal to face NXT Women’s Champion Lyra Valkyria, but she lost the match when 2023 Breakout Tournament winner Lola Vice cashed in her contract mid-way into the match and was eventually pinned by Lyra. Roxanne suffered another big loss, and once again had lost an NXT Women’s title match without ever being pinned herself. Because of this, Roxanne eventually fully gave into the darkness and attacked Lyra, turning heel and injuring the arm of the champion, an injury she exploited in a one on one title rematch to defeat Lyra for the title at the 2024 Stand & Deliver event, the same event she had lost her title the year prior, Roxanne reclaimed her championship, and the sweet, innocent, happy to be here version of Roxanne was dead as we know it, replaced by a more vicious, desperate to be at the top version that was proving to bring The Prodigy levels of success she hadn’t seen before. Roxanne has been champ since April, defending against main roster wrestlers like Natalya & Chelsea Green, as well as other promotion champion in the TNA Knockouts World Champion Jordynne Grace, and of course NXT talent like Lola Vice and most recently Thea Hail, because although the other Chase U members achieved their redemption, Thea was denied hers at the hands of the dominant champion. And now Roxanne has her next challenger in the form of Jaida Parker, a star who has had a fast rise to the top just like the champion, but can she do what Roxanne did and actually win the championship this early? Or will Roxanne deny yet another dream? Roxanne interrupted Jaida’s sitdown interview ahead of the title match and the segment ended with Jaida slapping Roxanne to the floor, sending a powerful message to the champ. Jaida then turned her attention to, and addressed someone off screen, asking what they were doing there and stating she’ll slap them too before walking away, Roxanne turned her head to look at the person Jaida was addressing and stared at them with a strong look of concern, and maybe a bit of fear in her eyes. Which of course begs the question, who were Jaida and Roxanne looking at? There are 3 main suspects, all new rumoured or confirmed big signings to NXT. It could be an Australian wrestler known as DELTA, admittedly I don’t know much about her but have heard good things. The second person it could be is someone confirmed signed to WWE in the form of Chilean wrestler Stephanie Vaquer, someone who I’ve become familiar with over the last year or so, having had a lot of success in the CMLL promotion in Mexico, before branching out into New Japan Pro Wrestling and a little bit in Stardom, capturing the NJPW Strong Women’s Championship, a title she took into the second biggest wrestling company in the world AEW’s Forbidden Door event as she faced and lost her title to Mercedes Moné. Just 10 days later it was announced that Vaquer had signed with WWE, making her in-ring debut for the company at a live event in Mexico before announcing that she would be joining the NXT brand in the near future. The third person, and the person I hope and honestly think it is, is the English born, Italian-Japanese wrestler known as Giulia. I have followed Giulia’s career for the last 4 years as I started watching her in the Stardom promotion in Japan, only the second Stardom show I watched featured Giulia winning a big tournament and ever since I watched her highs and lows, highs being multiple championship and tournament wins and then her lows being getting shaved bald after losing a hair vs hair match, which was pretty funny. Giulia made herself a big star while in Japan and it’s no surprise WWE wanted her, she’s got a great look, she’s got great skills, she’s got insane charisma, and she’s even putting in the work to learning more English, proving her level of commitment and dedication to adapting to a U.S audience. Giulia was shown in the crowd at NXT’s Stand & Deliver event this year, which is always a heavy indication that the wrestler will be joining WWE soon, receiving a big reaction that she couldn’t believe was for her, which was pretty cool. Giulia stayed behind in Japan for a while to help get new promotion Marigold off the ground, but after recently finishing up her dates there, it’s only a matter of time before she arrives and shakes things up in NXT’s women’s division! Arrivederci!
The final match to cover is the 31st NXT Champion “All Ego” Ethan Page defending his championship for the third time in his less than 60 day reign as he faces the social media sensation, The Prestigious Joe Hendry, a TNA wrestler crossing the line into NXT looking to capture the brand’s top prize. Ethan Page made his NXT debut on the May 28th 2024 episode of NXT, and he won the NXT Championship on July 7th, just 40 days after his debut, dethroning Trick Williams, getting lucky and literally falling unconscious into a pin in a Fatal 4 Way match for the championship at Heatwave against Trick, Je’Von Evans and Shawn Spears, but it doesn’t matter how he did it, all that matters is that All Ego captured the title in record time, beating out Kevin Owens’ record of 2 months between debut and NXT Title victory, Ethan Page has been NXT Champion longer than the time between his debut and winning the brands top championship. With his near 18 year experience as a wrestler, All Ego knew exactly how to quickly climb the NXT mountain, using all the knowledge and experience he had gained through the independents, TNA, ROH & AEW straight to WWE, reaching the summit of NXT as if he was playing this game of wrestling on easy difficulty, even if it did require a lot of luck. I mean even in his most recent title program against Oro Mensah, Main Man Mensah had spent weeks getting visible 3 counts over Page to rattle the champion, but when it came to the actual match, All Ego got lucky and retained the championship over Oro purely because the challenger slipped on the rope, allowing the champ to take advantage and retain. But I guess that’s part of the fun of watching a villain in wrestling, desperately waiting for their luck to run out and finally get humbled, and Page’s opponent at No Mercy could be the very man to do it, if you believe.
Say his name and he appears, Joe Hendry has set the wrestling world on fire over the last few months, a skilled wrestler with a rich amateur wrestling background, but what’s more impressive than that is Hendry’s ability to entertain fans using his musical expertise. Over his 11 year career thus far, The Prestigious One has enthralled fans by making music poking fun at his opponents, sometimes using original songs like in his live in-ring concerts, or parodying famous songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody, Wonderwall, Wrecking Ball, Blue and even the Pokémon theme tune! His most famous tune, however, is his entrance theme “I Believe in Joe Hendry”, composed by himself of course, a catchy, memorable, gets stuck in your head song that ensures you never forget the name, or face of, Joe Hendry. The Scottish Social Media Sensation’s theme song blew up on TikTok earlier this year and that was really the catalyst for Hendry’s surge in popularity, prompting him to release the song more publicly, something wrestling fans immediately got behind, helping Hendry soar his theme song up to number 4 in the British music charts, outperforming the likes of Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter & Beyoncé along the way. They even had to play the theme song on the radios, which made radio hosts very confused! When WWE began the working relationship between NXT & Joe Hendry’s home promotion TNA, it was really only a matter of time before the 252 pounds of pure motivation and the answer to all life’s problems would make his imminent WWE debut, which he did in June 2024. Joe Hendry’s WWE debut, which was literally just his theme song hitting and him making an entrance with a short promo, is WWE’s most viewed Twitter video of the year with 18M, and their most liked video post-WrestleMania on the platform, currently sitting at 105k total likes. Joe Hendry’s career is the longest I’ve followed a wrestler before they made it to WWE, being first introduced to him in 2016 in the British independent promotion WCPW, from there Hendry went to ROH, then TNA and then to now being the main focal point of the NXTNA working relationship, Hendry’s ability to entertain fans always meant he was destined for big things, and it may have taken him a while, but I’m really happy to see his success unfolding on weekly TV. Joe Hendry became number 1 contender to the NXT Championship by defeating Pete Dunne and Wes Lee in a triple threat match after Trick Williams laid out his current rival Dunne, giving Hendry a championship match against Ethan Page, the man who stole the title away from Williams and the man who tried everything to prevent Hendry from winning the match, but to no avail. Hendry promised to return the favour to Trick by assuring him that when he wins the championship, he’ll give Trick the first shot at his title. Later in the show, due to Ethan Page’s complete disregard for NXT referees, NXT general manager Ava appointed Trick Williams as the Special Guest Ref for the title match, for the first time, it looks as if All Ego may face some comeuppance for all his wrong-doings, but with The Bruiserweight Pete Dunne still lurking in the shadows, Trick’s job as referee may not be as simple as he expects. It’s also worth mentioning that Joe Hendry is having problems with Josh Alexander over in TNA, Ethan Page’s old tag team partner as the most successful TNA World Tag Team Champions as The North, so who knows if he’ll play any factor, Alexander hasn’t crossed the line into a WWE ring yet, but if there was ever a time…
Regardless this match leaves many questions, will Ethan Page get lucky again? Can Joe Hendry win his first major championship in an American promotion? How will all the outside variables factor into the match? But the most important question of all… do YOU believe in Joe Hendry?
