The physicality, the extremity, the theatricality, the obsessive audience, the pyrotechnics, the emotional investment and violent expressionism; when you think about it, heavy music and pro-wrestling were made for each other. So it should come as no surprise that the worlds have long been entwined.
From the local indie scene to the big leagues of the USA, Europe and Japan, the influence of metal on pro wrestling can be seen, heard and felt at pretty much every wrestling show. With the industry currently experiencing a boom period the likes of which it hasn't seen since the early '00s, that connection between worlds is on display daily across the globe.
One man who lives and breathes that connection is veteran pro-wrestler and lifelong heavy music fan, 'The Bad Boy' Joey Janela. A revered journeyman with a reputation for taking things to the extreme, Janela has been active on the scene since 2006, notching up significant tenures in All Elite Wrestling (AEW), DDT Pro-Wrestling, Game Changer Wrestling (GCW), Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) and Major League Wrestling (MLW).
With the popular New Jersey-based independent promotion GCW set to hit Australia this August for a series of cross-promotional battles with rising Australian promotion Renegades Of Wrestling (ROW) we sat down with Janela for a chat about the connection between wrestling and metal and his excitement to play a part in bringing GCW down under.
'The Bad Boy' Joey Janela On The Connection Between Metal and Pro Wrestling
Maniacs: You're headed down under as part of the card for GCW's showdown with Australia's ROW, how freaking cool is that?
Joey Janela: "I love Australia. I come to Australia, at least once a year. Love, love, love the Tim Tams, love the women. I love the bars. You know, I love it all!"
GCW is one of the hottest independent promotions on the planet at the moment. What can people expect from GCW's first trip to Australia?
"We're all flavours of ice cream. You'll get a little comedy, you'll get luchadors, so the high-flying, you'll get to see some of the greatest athletes on the independent scene today. Plus you get the hardcore matches and the deathmatches. It's a variety show. Some people might not like everything, but they will like something on a GCW show, I promise you. We are the best variety show in the history of the professional wrestling business. That's why we've caught fire over the last five years big time, it is because we have flavours for everyone."
As a metal publication, we've become quite aware of the strong connection between pro wrestling and metal. As a wrestler who is also a pretty big fan of metal, why do you think that connection exists?
"I dunno, degenerate people?" "It really started in the mid-90s, when ECW came around and they were using a lot of the White Zombies of the world for their video packages. Then when WWF kind of evolved from that family-friendly product into the Attitude Era, they started incorporating a lot more rock and metal into their programming. Particularly like Limp Bizkit and the popular bands around that time. GCW is a pretty punk rock promotion, we do things a little bit differently than the big two companies, so we're keeping that going, we're basically rock 'n' roll, you know?
It's pretty wild that the connection has evolved to the point that there are active wrestlers on the scene who are members of prominent bands. As a former member of AEW, you worked with two of them in the form of ex-Every Time I Die guitarist Andy 'The Butcher' Williams and God's Hate's Brody King. What was that experience like?
"The Butcher wrestled one of his first matches on one of my shows with GCW, Spring Break One. It was him and Penelope Ford vs his now partner, 'The Blade' who was known as Pepper Parks back then and Ally who is of course 'The Bunny'. They are now all working in harmony in AEW. But before all that we heard he was training and he did one 'squash' match prior to the match on Spring Break One. My best friend was a huge Every Time I Die Fan, it's one of his favourite bands, and he has an Every Time I Die tattoo, so I knew through meeting Andy and stuff and realizing how cool he is and how passionate he was about getting into wrestling that we had to get him onto the show."
"Brody's band has blown up huge too. When he first came around, I knew of him and everyone was telling me his band was big on the hardcore scene, but they're blowing up even bigger now, I've seen them play in front of giant crowds. It's a great crossover. There were people who maybe didn't know he was a musician or didn't know he was a wrestler and so cross-promotion is very cool for the business."
One other crossover from AEW that has helped the likes of GCW is the way Jon Moxley and a few others over in AEW brought death-match wrestling into the mainstream, and have incorporated some of the GCW talent while doing that. As a frequent performer in that style, do you feel like that has helped condition fans to see those styles as less of a 'freak show'?
"I think it'll always be seen as a freak show, unfortunately, that's just how some people are, how some mainstream fans are. But it was cool for Moxley to come down and get him in the mix at GCW. I knew how much he loved deathmatch wrestling, and how much he respects and appreciates it. So he wanted to come in and do his thing. And he got us a lot of press, he got us a lot of new fans. And you know, we're so grateful for that. And it's also cool to see them bring a lot of the aspects of deathmatch wrestling, to television, then bring in Nick Gage to wrestle Chris Jericho and Chris Jericho was taking lightbulbs and panes of glass, that was a kind of surreal moment of 'what kind of vortex did we create here in this business?'.
"Before GCW there was CZW and IDB mid-south and that brought that very extreme portion of deathmatch wrestling from Japan to the United States and then GCW came along and we kind of took that aspect of professional wrestling and strapped a rocket to it. I feel like we're the ones responsible for that momentum of deathmatch wrestling and elements of deathmatch wrestling getting to mainstream television as it has."
I've been a ring announcer for a deathmatch promotion out here and I've always loved that style, but the last time I remember having this level of traction globally was during the height of ECW, which is also the first time I noticed the crossover between metal and wrestling. How important was ECW for you in terms of getting hooked on the more extreme style of pro wrestling?
"Oh, man. Yeah, it was big for me. When I first discovered it. I was like, 'What is going on here?' And then like, soon after that I discovered deathmatch wrestling in Japan, and I just thought, 'wow, this is some really crazy stuff!' It's definitely inspired me and a lot of people say like, if there was any wrestler that would be in ECW if it was around today, then it would be Joey Janela, he would 100% be a main character for that company.
"So I take a lot of aspects of that, copying elements and bringing them into current-day professional wrestling. Wrestling wasn't always the way it is today, where people are looking for someone to make a mistake or a botch, or they want to see clean wrestling, they want to see clean athleticism. It wasn't always like that. ECW was a kind of mix, you know of 'Is Sandman or Sabu gonna hit this spot, or is someone going to possibly almost die?' "And that's what the beauty of professional wrestling is. I don't think everything should be as choreographed or as clean as it is today. There are a lot of great athletes today, but it was always a lot of fun watching ECW or the Indies in the '2000s and having this sense of danger around it. This sense that you don't know what's going to happen in the next match, coz it could all go wrong in one second. That's just how I like my professional wrestling."
Is that also how you like your music? Your metal? Do you want there to be a bit of grit?
"Yeah, I like my metal music. I'm going to see Metallica on Sunday in New Jersey. I'm a big Metallica fan but I've never got to see Metallica live, and they're doing two big shows in New Jersey this weekend, so I'm so happy to get to do that. Metallica was probably one of the first metal bands I really got into as I child."
I think Metallica is a lot of people's first metal band, it was definitely the case for me, then I got into Pantera, and it escalated from there. I remember being so hyped for RVD coming out to 'Walk' in ECW too. Was that the same for you?
"Yeah, it was those two. Pantera is actually opening for them on Friday, but I won't be there on Friday, so I'm a bit upset about that."
Do you know who you get as your opener?
"Unfortunately, it is Five Finger Death Punch."
That is a brilliant answer. I feel like Five Finger Death Punch is what WWE considers metal. Their sound is pure wrestle-metal.
"Hahah yeah, they are. Once I went to see Five Finger Death Punch as part of a music festival and I think they blew up the speakers. In the second song. I think this is 2008ish maybe, so maybe high school. That's when Five Finger Death Punch first came around, and they blew out the speakers and they decided to play out the rest of the show. And you know, it wasn't a pretty sight."
"It wasn't a pretty sight" sounds like a pretty good description of the aftermath of most of your matches. I'm curious if you could take one person from the rock or metal world, be they dead or alive and throw them into the wrestling world, who would it be?
"Probably G.G.Allin".
What do you reckon his signature match would be?
"The pit of shit match! You have to be thrown into a baby pool full of G.G. Allin's shit and baby diapers".
I'm actually surprised that's not a match type already to be honest with you, aren't you?
"He'd go viral in 2023 for sure. In 2023, deathmatch wrestling really jumped the gun. GCW has wrestlers that can do both, that can do regular wrestling and they can do deathmatch wrestling, but deathmatch wrestling has gotten so extreme in the United States now that there are wrestlers in shitty promotions putting syringes through their cocks for shock value. And even though that is very G.G. Allin, and he might fit in doing something like that, I just don't know what the next step in this deathmatch game is, but I hope it is not anything like that."
Who are your top three wrestlers of all time, who absolutely did it for you as a kid and have inspired you to be who you are now?
"Steve Austin, Terry Funk, and either Mick Foley or Shawn Michaels. But there are others on the list. It's hard you can change them out. But those are four guys that really did it for me."
If you could have any three bands, be they still with us or not, playing a crossover festival with GCW, who would they be? Who would you like to have on Joey Janella's 'Bad Boy' Rockin' Wrestling Experience?
"The original Pantera line-up for sure. Ummm, Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy has to be on there and, let's put The Geto Boys on there."
Do you have a favourite moment when the worlds of metal and wrestling united?
"It was pretty cool when Limp Bizkit was on top, back when rap-metal was at the height of its popularity and the wrestler Steve Corino interrupted one of their shows. I thought that was cool."
One final thing before you bounce, the promotion you're working with for this tour in Australia ROW recently worked the Knotfest circuit in Australia, so tell me, who would win in a wrestling match between Fred Durst, Jonathan Davis and Corey Taylor?
"Corey Taylor 100%" He's always been really supportive and nice to the wrestling community."
Well, he'd need the push if he was going to fight Randy Orton like he has been alluding to on his Instagram recently! Who'd win that match, Corey or Randy?
"I think Randy Orton might win that one, I mean he is like 6'4 and he'll catch him with that RKO out of nowhere."
GCW VS ROW AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2023
Game Changer Wrestling is a New Jersey (USA) based independent wrestling organization that promotes and broadcasts over 75 live events per year across the United States and around the globe.
GCW's product has no limitations and follows no rules. At any given time, you could be watching the very best in high-flying, hardcore or technical wrestling, featuring a hungry and diverse locker room full of world-class performers that continue to raise the bar.
GCW has captivated audiences across the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Mexico. Now, they're ready to make their long-awaited debut in Australia, bringing with them a roster of the finest independent talent from the USA and beyond.
Standing tall on home turf, Australia's very own Renegades of Wrestling are ready to prove their mettle, following their electrifying performances at Slipknot's legendary ‘’Knotfest’’ and fresh from a highly acclaimed ‘’Brewery Brawl’’ event as part of Melbourne's ‘’Good Beer Week’’.
With the goal set out to put on incredible shows that inspire and excite pro wrestling fans from all over the country, ROW showcases the cream of Australia's independent wrestling talent and offers an adrenaline-fuelled, highly sought after product, celebrating the diversity of what professional wrestling has to offer on Australian soil.
Expect an edge-of-your-seat experience as these hometown heroes go head-to-head with the international juggernaut that is GCW.
Featuring the likes of El Hijo Del Vikingo, Maki Itoh, Joey Janela,Effy, Allie Katch, Gringo Loco, Charli Evans, Rat Daddy, Aysha, Gore, Lochy Hendricks and more. Choose your allegiance, then secure your tickets via Destroy All Lines.
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