JD Drake Recalls Disliking Anthony Henry When They First Met, Discusses WorkHorsemen Formation
JD Drake remembers detesting Anthony Henry when they first met and how that led to them becoming one of Ring Of Honor’s greatest combinations.
Many tag teams in wrestling history have been put together at random, which sometimes results in the two individuals clicking and having chemistry with one another.
This is the situation for The WorkHorsemen, a team which includes members who belong to AEW and Ring Of Honor. Anthony Henry and JD Drake met in Evolve Wrestling, where they won the Evolve Tag Team Championships in their debut match as a team.
JD Drake and Anthony Henry were allegedly not friends before becoming an established tag team. Drake delved into the subject of how he genuinely despised Henry when they first met in a new interview with the AEW Unrestricted podcast.
“Anthony Henry and I, when we first met, hated each other. Despised each other. We’ve known each other for over 12 years now. When I first met him, I thought he was just a pretentious douchebag, I mean look at him, he looks like a douchebag. He looks like someone that you wanna walk up to and just slap. I happened to know his girlfriend at the time, Amber Young. Amber is the daughter of Dave Young, I know both of you know David. I knew her and I knew of Anthony, but I would always go over and talk to her and he would start cutting eyes across the lot. So I would lean over and whisper in Amber’s ear and literally say ‘I’m just leaning over and whispering in your ear just to piss Anthony off. So in just a second, I want you to giggle like I said something funny and I’m gonna pat you on the back and walk off.’ He would come over and be like ‘What the hell was he saying to you? What was he doing, was he flirting with you?’ I continued doing this for a solid year. Finally, I was working a show in Augusta, where he lives, and afterwards, we all went to dinner. Me and Anthony was sat across the table from one another and were just staring and I said ‘Are you that big of a douche all the time?’ and he said ‘Are you that big of a loudmouth redneck all the time?’ I said yes, he said same, I said ‘Cool, James. Nice to meet ya.’”
JD Drake on AEW’s UNRESTRICTED Podcast
Drake went on to talk about how he and Henry eventually established a successful tag team.
“We started talking and became acquaintances. We worked together all over the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia [independent scene]. Then, we started working for Evolve Wrestling and we got put together by happensakes. We were working for FIP, Style Battle, a lot of the different promotions that fell under the WWN banner. All of the sudden, we got a call saying ‘Hey, we’re gonna be in Charlotte, we want to use you guys as a tag team.’ We had never tagged before, so our first tag team experience was the biggest show that we had worked on. They said, ‘By the way, you’re wrestling the tag champs, Chris Dickinson & Jaka.’ So we go out and wrestle the best tag team in the company and beat them, first night in the company. Then we go to Atlanta the next day and we are in a three way with Dickinson & Jaka and The Ugly Ducklings, and we pinned The Ugly Ducklings and kept the belts. We kept the belts in Evolve, without a contract, for six months. So we said to each other, ‘I think this a thing we outta pursue.’”
JD Drake on AEW’s UNRESTRICTED Podcast
Henry and Drake have also won the Freelance World Tag Team Championships, the Rockstar Pro Tag Team Championships, and the AWE Tag Team Championships throughout their nearly six-year tenure as a team.
Drake stated in an interview in October 2022 that he was not disappointed with his current stint in AEW.
h/t Fightful
Follow Mark T Cyrus at @_MarkCyrus on Twitter
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