Last year Randy Orton was originally set to face off against Kevin Owens on the Grandest Stage of Them All, but Owens was unfortunately pulled from the match due to a career threatening injury. In the weeks leading up to WrestleMania there was a lot of speculation regarding who KO’s replacement would be and ultimately Joe Hendry stepped up to face The Viper at WrestleMania.
While talking about the match during an interview with Complex, Joe Hendry revealed that he and Randy Orton only had one interaction before they face off at WrestleMania.
“I’d obviously followed him on Twitter for years. He followed me on social media when my act started to get hot. And then I just said something to the effect of, ‘Thanks for following me, hope we get to work together some day in the future.’ This might have been 2024, or something like that.
“I can’t remember what the exact reply was, but it was just like, ‘Good luck to you, wishing you all the best.’ And the match actually happened. That’s exactly what happened with how I got the match with Kurt Angle as well. So it’s interesting, I don’t know if there was a bit of manifestation in there. It’s interesting, it was the same thing with Kurt Angle.
Joe Hendry then reiterated that there were no other interactions prior to their WrestleMania match. He also noted that Randy Orton responded to his original message with a message of his own which said, “Good luck to you, wishing you all the best.”
As of this writing Joe Hendry does not have a match scheduled for WrestleMania this year, but he will be defending the NXT Championship against Ethan Page, Ricky Saints and Tony D’Angelo at Stand & Deliver.