The D’Amore Drop is a weekly guest column on Uncrowned written by Scott D’Amore, the Canadian professional wrestling promoter, executive producer, trainer and former wrestler best known for his long-standing role with TNA/IMPACT Wrestling, where he served as head of creative. D’Amore is the current owner of leading Canadian promotion Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling.
Joe Hendry is a guy I first heard about through my longtime friend Drumboy in about 2017.
Drumboy does not go to indie shows. He just doesn’t. So one day I call him, just checking in, and he tells me he’s driving out of town to go to an indie show. I’m like, “You didn’t tell me you were booked on a show,” and he says, no, he’s not booked. Drumboy is going because — quote — his “favorite wrestler in the world” is on the show.
Obviously, he hadn’t paid for his ticket — that would have been completely out of character — but as he’s driving along, Drumbie goes on to tell me all about this guy from Scotland. He’s massively charismatic, Drumboy raves. He writes his own songs — hilarious songs, like the best promo you ever heard, but sung and put to music! He has a great look! He’s the most charismatic guy the business has seen in years and years!
As if he hadn’t sold me the idea that I needed to meet this guy already, Drumbie then told me to go on YouTube and look up the “I Believe in Joe Hendry” video (the OG version). Man, I got it. Immediately, I got it. What a star this guy was.
Not long after, I was in the UK for TNA (then called IMPACT!) and Drumbie had already gotten in Joe’s ear. We met with Joe and he couldn’t have been more impressive. We wanted to sign him there and then, but he didn’t have a U.S. visa, so we did a handful of Canadian dates in 2018 and said we’d work together in the future.
Unfortunately for us, when he did get his U.S. visa, Ring of Honor snapped him up for a couple of years. But as soon as that was up, we moved immediately to get him to come to TNA.
That run is what let Joe really spread his wings, do the bigger music videos, get over, go viral. Joe is incredibly creative — I’d say Weird Al Yankovic level at doing parody and humor. He has a unique charisma. No one in the business does what Joe does. You know what I am talking about. The guy is amazing.
All of this led to his WWE Royal Rumble appearance in January, which in turn led to his WrestleMania match vs. Randy Orton.
And now he’s about to debut as an official part of the WWE roster. He’s going to kill it there. WWE gets him — I think it’s shown that with what he’s been doing in NXT.
With Joe’s creativity, and the WWE’s production and budget, we could see some absolutely groundbreaking stuff.
I hope Joe makes a ton of money there and absolutely takes over the world.
I believe.
As I’ve said before, Matt Cardona is the shining example, the prototype, of how talent can make the most of a post-WWE career in the modern era. But, as he began saying publicly about a year ago, this lifelong WWE fan wanted to get back there.
Someday.
Somehow.
Matt openly campaigned for a Royal Rumble appearance in January, he played it up online, he leaned into the buzz, and he out and out told Ariel Helwani he wanted the be a surprise entrant for the Rumble. But it didn’t happen.
I know I wasn’t the only one who was thrilled for Matt when he showed up to face LA Knight on the Nov. 14 edition of “SmackDown” as Zack Ryder.
He had a great TV match vs. Knight in The Last Time Is Now tournament and, while apparently it was a one-off for now, WWE will have heard loud and clear the reaction Matt got.
Some of Matt’s supporters online were upset he came out as Zack Ryder, but that’s simply the way WWE operates. It controls IP whenever it can.
But, to be honest, the “Cardona” beard was still there, there was no bleach blonde in sight and WWE’s commentary team put over some the great things he’s done outside WWE.
He was Matt Cardona in all but name.
AEW Full Gear on Saturday has a stacked card, and the world title match is rightly getting the most attention. Hangman Adam Page defends the belt inside a steel cage vs. legend Samoa Joe, which is a match with real credibility and history behind it.
Page has been carrying himself like a champion with the full weight of the division on his back, and Joe is the kind of opponent whom fans believe can beat anyone on any night. That gives this main event the tension it needs. That’s what needs to be in place going into a big event.
On the women’s side, Kris Statlander puts the AEW Women’s World Championship on the line against Mercedes Moné. Mercedes has already won the TBS title and, if I can keep up with the count, a dozen more titles from around the world.
Mercedes stepping back into the AEW World Championship picture creates a ripple effect because there are a few women who look like they should be No. 1 contenders. Willow, for example, has been tracking toward a title shot for a long time. So this match is not just about Statlander and Mercedes — it’s also about what happens next. If Mercedes finally wins the title, who’s positioned as her first challenger? If she loses, how does she remain in the title picture when her first two title challenges failed?
The answers to these questions will shape AEW’s women’s division for the first part of 2026.
AEW’s tag-team division has another major championship match, as Brodido — the team of Brody King and Bandido — defend the AEW World Tag Team Championship against FTR. FTR might be the best traditional wrestling tag-team of its generation, and it elevates everyone they wrestle. A big pay-per-view tag-title match is exactly the environment where it thrives. The division has been uneven lately and I am looking for this match to reset the whole tag scene in AEW.
You also have Kyle Fletcher, who underlined his young superstar status vs. Page earlier this year. He remains the TNT Champion and has been in there with big, physical challengers who push him. He has taken some losses, by design, but his upside is obvious. I am looking for him to make another big statement on pay-per-view.
Then there is a six-man tag with too much star power to ignore — Jack Perry and Kyle Fletcher team with Kenny Omega to take on the Young Bucks and world-class technician Josh Alexander. Omega and Alexander sharing a ring is special, and the Bucks are built for the kind of fast-paced chaos a six-man brings.
Everyone knows how close I am with Josh and that I believe — and have for a long time — he’s the best wrestler in North America. He’s wanted to wrestle Kenny Omega for a long time, and — not trying to tell AEW how to book, but for me as a fan and me as Josh’s friend — I’d love for a Kenny vs. Josh singles match.
Full Gear this Saturday feels like one of those nights where AEW can remind people what makes its product different from WWE.
If it delivers, it sets the table for a massive start to 2026.
Last week I said I loved WWE giving John Cena a massive feel-good moment, winning the Intercontinental title from Dominick Mysterio on “Raw” in Boston.
I’ll add that I think he should retain the title in next week’s Survivor Series rematch vs. Dirty Dom in San Diego. He shouldn’t lose the title at all before he retires in three weeks.
I don’t think retiring with the belt hurts the belt at all. In fact, I think it elevates it. There is something powerful about Cena, one of the greatest WWE stars of all time, holding that championship on the way out.
This should be a Sting-level sendoff, not a Goldberg-level sendoff.
Cena has given WWE 20 years of his body, his time, his name and his life.
He has earned his hero’s farewell.
The other huge one-off return to WWE recently was Dolph Ziggler (Nick Nemeth), who lost to Solo Sikoa this past Monday in The Last Time Is Now Tournament.
Wow.
What a massive reaction he got — and not just one! MSG went nuts for him throughout the match.
But Ziggler’s return to WWE was always going to get a massive reaction, because he was a much bigger star in his previous run there than some people with agendas want to admit.
He floated in and around WWE main events for years, he is a multi-time WWE world champion, and he always connected with the WWE audience. Inside WWE board rooms, people were split on him. Some thought he was unbelievably talented and should have been pushed to the moon, others thought he worked too much for pops and didn’t quite “get it” — whatever that means.
But the one thing nobody disputed was that he could walk through the curtain and get a reaction that very few people in the modern era can match.
He proved it yet again on “Raw.”
I don’t think Nick popping back up in WWE and losing is a negative for TNA at all.
If anything, having someone who has been a featured part of your product appear on that big of a stage, with that level of fanfare and get that response, only helps TNA.
Second-guessing TNA’s booking really isn’t something I am interested in. It just isn’t my place, and I’m in a no-win situation — if I praise then I am biased, and if I critique I am grinding an ax.
But I want to talk about TNA’s recent title change.
All I’ll say is that, in a different universe where I stayed at TNA, Frankie Kazarian was going to win the TNA World Title sooner rather than later. I am so happy for him that he’s getting his flowers with a title run now.
I’ve known Frankie for decades. My earliest memories of him are actually through Nova (aka Mike Bucci, aka Simon Dean) because Nova and Frankie were tagging together on the West Coast in UPW. Nova would always tell these stories about this kid Frankie he was teaming with. Frankie was young and really good-looking, could already move amazingly well, super athletic, super respectful, just one of those guys everybody spoke highly of, I was told.
And, yep, when I finally worked with Frankie in 2002 on the World Wrestling All-Stars tour, all of that checked out.
You gotta remember, that tour had almost all established TV names on it — Sting, Lex Luger, Buff Bagwell, Jeff Jarrett and more. Frankie was one of only two guys on that tour who wasn’t a major star, or at least hadn’t been on TV for years and wasn’t on first-name basis with major stars.
There were long bus rides, it was very much a “veterans” locker room where there are huge egos left and right … and Frankie fit in like one of the boys right away. He handled it like he’d been doing it for years.
After that, he came into Border City Wrestling that I ran at the time, and that’s where he met Traci Brooks, his future wife. They are both like family to me. Then we had a real run together in the early TNA — then fast forward and he’s in AEW and making great money, but said he loved the vibe of what we were building in TNA just after the pandemic.
I remember straight up telling him: “Frankie, please, we can’t come close to matching what you make in AEW. I don’t even want to make you an offer because I don’t want you to accept it.”
But he insisted — and Traci was super supportive of the idea. He wanted to come to TNA. He made an immediate difference in the locker room and to the product. Frankie is a leader. A steady hand. And, damnit, he’s still impossibly good-looking and athletic. It’s really unfair.
I get why some fans weren’t thrilled he beat Mike Santana so soon, especially after Mike’s long chase to get the belt. There’s chatter about a new TV deal for TNA, and plans for Santana to win the belt back on the first episode. That all makes sense.
All I want to say is: Frankie Kazarian has been consistently great for decades and he deserved that moment. He earned the hell out of it.
Seeing Frankie win the TNA world title was especially emotional for me, because I’ve long felt that Traci never got the flowers she deserved for all she did for TNA — and women’s wrestling.
Frankie’s world-title win was her title win, too.
