Joey Janela AEW
Photo Credit: Thomas Tischio / AEW

Joey Janela: ‘I Think Next Year Is Gonna Be My Biggest Year Yet As A Professional Wrestler’

“The Bad Boy” Joey Janela continues to grow, and he’s changing into a new character in All Elite Wrestling. Following Janela’s turn on his former partner, Sonny Kiss, the New Jersey native is ready for his breakout moment after the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic somewhat hindered his run in AEW.

During an appearance on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, Janela discussed the evolution of “The Bad Boy” and described how difficult the lack of live fans has been for him. He noted how he had been thriving with full crowds, but he struggled when the COVID-19 pandemic forced AEW to run empty arena shows and, later, reduced capacity events. But Janela explained how, moving forward, these challenges have motivated him to grow.

“Everything has to evolve, and I’ve come to notice that in the last year,” said Janela. “Because without a crowd being there for TV, I was at AEW, when there was crowds there, I was doing big merch for them and I was over. And then the crowds disappeared, and I had no crowd to rely on anymore. So that was hard because I’m a big ‘just go with the crowd’ guy, so 2020 kinda hurt me a little bit. But now I realize I have to evolve my character into something else to continue to move forward and grow myself.”

As for the specific “Bad Boy” moniker, Janela stated that he intends to keep it because he owns the trademark for it and he wants to roll with the name. But he emphasized that he plans to evolve the character into something different than what fans have come to expect of it. He also expressed his belief that 2022 will be the “biggest” year of his career as a wrestler, at least up to this point.

“I think the Bad Boy thing, I think I’ll keep with that,” said Janela. “‘The Heartbreak Kid’ was always ‘The Heartbreak Kid.’ Right now he’s ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ and he’s not a kid. But I think keeping that moniker, I got the trademark for it now because a few people try to come after me. So I’ve got that, so I might as well just run with it, but there’s definitely ways to evolve it into something else. And we’re working on that right now, and I think next year is gonna be my biggest year yet as a professional wrestler.

“We’re just thinking of ways to just do different, and they kind of just don’t tell me what to say, so I just think of stuff. And right now, I think if we run with it a little bit more, I think it’s gonna be very good for me going forward.”

Janela named his lack of opportunities to cut promos as one of the reasons why he has experienced some difficulty connecting with the promotion’s new fans throughout the pandemic era. But now that his new character is getting some time on the microphone, Janela made it clear that he intends to capitalize on this chance.

“I’ve never really had a chance really to talk in AEW and connect on a promo level, even though I always knew I could,” said Janela. “I think that was one of the issues with me and why I haven’t in the last year really have gotten over and connected with the the audience that’s coming in, is because I never got a chance to do those and talk and stuff. So I think I’m just gonna keep on rolling with it.”

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The full interview is available here:

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