Ace Steel wants to work on the mechanics with Joe Hendry.
Steel recently spoke with WrestleZone about his pairing with the social media sensation and what they hope to accomplish together. Steel, who also works backstage with TNA as a producer, said he has been working with Joe Hendry behind the scenes on fine-tuning some things, which he believes will get Hendry to the next level.
Say his name and he appears
Steel says Hendry has no problem with charisma and commanding a crowd’s attention, but he wants Hendry to get a little bit more of that killer instinct that past world champions also had.
“Oh no. It’s working his in-ring, what he does in-ring, focusing 100%. He obviously has the crowd with the charisma, and that’s something you can’t teach. You can’t teach that. You can tell people to come out of their shell and hopefully, they do. With a guy like CM Punk, you couldn’t tell him to stop talking on the mic. He always gravitated, could connect with the crowd with anybody, from the independents to, obviously, look at him now [in WWE]. But Joe has had that intangible. He can go out there. He’s done that himself. Everything he’s done from working in Ring of Honor at an earlier time to when he got a shot in TNA. I’m being 100% serious; until I came on board with TNA, I had not heard of Joe Hendry. I may have heard the name but I wasn’t invested in him.
“And from the first night, it was actually in Chicago, last October when I started in TNA. From the first night I saw him in the ring, I was like, ‘Wow, this guy has got something.’
The killer instinct
Steel says his goal is to focus more on going for the win and getting Hendry to have a champion’s mentality and not always pandering to the crowd.
“He has the people with him, we don’t always have to turn and look at them. They are coming with us, let’s bring ‘em for the ride. We don’t always have to sort of break that fourth wall and look into the camera. That’s kind of his thing in a lot of ways. But I’m getting him more focused on what he’s doing in the ring, to get to the point of getting to the win as opposed to, let’s get the crowd one more chant with us. They are going to chant. They are already chanting. The minute he’s on the mat they are chanting. If he’s down, they’re chanting for him to get up. So, what can he do to maximize that?”
Steel says with the crowd already in his corner, Hendry doesn’t have to do things like clapping them up for a rally. There is a place for that, but he just wants to help push Hendry to the next level in his promising career.
“I’m just trying to get him to get to the point much like any other champion has had a championship belt. It’s hard for — I don’t think of him as a strict comedy wrestler because I don’t think he’s comedy. But you’ve got to eliminate a little bit of the ‘ha-ha’ element to show the focus and again, you’ve got the guys behind me on this wall [points to his photos of Harley Race, Bruiser Brody], to show that killer instinct.”
Watch our full interview with Ace Steel below:
