Joey Janela has wrestled in, and put together, some crazy matches throughout his career. One of the most infamous was a roof bump he took at GCW’s Tournament of Survival. On Prime Time with Sean Mooney, Joey Janela recounted how the spot was put together and the aftermath of the bump.
“I knew I was getting thrown off something, but I didn’t know that I was getting thrown off that roof, you know. Showing up at the building that day, he said ‘come around back, I’m going to show you where you’re going off of.’ It was just like, alright, got to do it now. You’re not going to say no.”
“First I was on the ground and he showed me where I was going to fall into. He showed me the truck. The reason it was in the back of a pickup truck was because the shock, the springs on the truck, would break or fall just like a wrestling ring. He was 100% right actually, to be honest. It felt like flipping off a building into a wrestling ring. A hard one, but a wrestling ring. So, he was showing me how I was going to fall and there was a lot of stuff that was part of the bump I didn’t agree to take before I said I wouldn’t do this, I wouldn’t do that. But when I got there I was talked into it and I said, ‘ok, let’s do it.’ I thought it was off the lower roof and then he said, ‘come on, we’re going to go up,’ and it was the very top roof of this warehouse.”
“We did the match. The match was great. This guy looked the best that he’s looked in 15 years. Doing a great job of doing this match with him and the crowds into it. We got to the spot and then we go up. He lifts me up and I close my eyes and when I open them and we’re in the back of a truck in a pile of glass and barbed wire. As soon as I open my eyes a bunch of light bulbs that popped off of the truck due to the spring came crashing down on my face and I was spitting out glass. This guy was saying that his back was broken. I couldn’t see anything because of the dust and I didn’t think I was that hurt. I was like, ‘wow, I survived this,’ and I thought, alright, this is very wild. It was a very wild thing to do and I looked at my hand and thumb was squirting blood all over the place. It was a really crazy moment because the entire staff ran over and I said ‘my thumb is hanging off.’ This guy is saying his back is broken.”
“When we came out of that truck that crowd was, they lost it. People say it was in front of 30 people, there was a good 500 people there. It was the most hardcore wrestling fans from the present and past of the days of CZW were there. It really was a special moment, even though my thumb was hanging off. And I didn’t go right to the hospital. I hung around there for about another four hours. I just taped it up and drank about six beers. Then I decided to go to the hospital.”
The full audio of Janela recalling the roof bump can be found below:
