AEW’s Jack Perry Talks the Scapegoat Bus, Creating TNT Title from Scratch [Exclusive]

From the summer of 2023 until the end of 2024, Jack Perry was on the best run of his career. He embraced his role as a heel and the “Scapegoat” character became an extension of his real life. He proved what his fans have always thought about him: he’s not just one note. It’s just that now he has the creative outlet to show it off. Perry took a break from wrestling earlier this year and returned at AEW All Out alongside Luchasaurus to reform Jurassic Express.

In the first part of our interview, which went live earlier this week, Perry discusses his return to AEW, reuniting Jurassic Express, the tag team division, and his feelings about the Pillars storyline.

In part two, Perry dives deeper into his creative side, how the Scapegoat bus came to be and if it’ll be seen again, and what he got up to during his time away from wrestling.

We joked that Perry is the “jack of all trades” but that couldn’t be more accurate. Now that he has the creative freedom with his character, he’s incorporating his hobbies into his day job. When Perry won the TNT Championship, he posted a video creating a new belt from scratch. This caught a lot of intrigue from fans, leading to him sharing his other skills, like knifemaking and producing. The TNT title is unique in that some of its holders created their own spin. Scorpio Sky’s belt paid tribute to Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers. Miro had a Bulgarian flag-inspired title.

However, Perry wanted to push the limit. That’s where his metalworking came in.

 ”I do actually feel like that is one thing that the Scapegoat time allowed me to do. I’m just interested in all this stuff. I’m interested in film, I’m interested in stunts. The TNT title, I’d seen these videos on Instagram of people melting metal. Anna [Jay] actually got me for Christmas this little kit where you can melt soda cans. When I won the TNT title, I asked to change the color of the leather like how people used to do. I wanted to put goat skin but someone said, ‘No, sorry. We can’t do that.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, we’ll see about that,’ [laughs].

I figured I could probably cast a belt with soda cans that I have. I experimented with it and it worked. So then I was like, okay, well, I’m having a new belt just out of defiance. I ended up making that and that got me more into the idea of metalworking. I’ve always been into making stuff, but metal seemed far out there and impossible.

Once he was successful in that venture, he transitioned to making knives. He admits that his first attempt was pretty rough, but he soon got the hang of it. Now, he frequently shares his knives to his 200k Instagram followers.

“I wanted the first knife I made, it was for a New Japan thing I was doing, I wanted to make a little knife out of a railroad spike with a goat head on it. It looks terrible by knife standards, but I thought it was really cool and I did it enough for it to work. I think I have all this creativity and it’s gotta get out somehow, whether it’s wrestling or filming stuff or making knives or whatever it is. So it’s now one of my things and it’s cool that it somehow ended up being incorporated into the wrestling, which I found for me, like the bus, it’s kind of fun to just be able to put all this weird stuff into the character and somehow it’s making sense and I feel like there’s a vibe of what it is.

All the old guys hate it, which I kind of love, and it seems like younger people are into it. We will just keep letting it morph, but I feel like it’s a freedom that I wouldn’t have had once upon a time. As Jungle Boy the first time around, I don’t think I could have said, ‘Hey guys, I’d like to do all this.’ I think everyone would’ve been like, ‘We have no idea what you’re talking about.’ So now I’m kind of free to do whatever weird stuff I like and hopefully people like it.”

As for the Scapegoat bus — which Perry jokes is now part of his identity — it wasn’t meant to be a permanent part of his character.

“Some people out there despise the bus — the bus is one of my favorite things ever. We were getting ready to do Anarchy in the Arena, it was me, the Bucks, and [Kazuchika] Okada. The Bucks told me, ‘We’re gonna do this special entrance and we’re gonna pull up in a Cyber Truck. Okada is gonna pull up in a Ferrari. Do you want a Lamborghini or something?’ I was thinking about it like, I mean, that would be sick. But I don’t really think that’s the vibe of what I’m doing right now.

I remembered that Darby in real life had been hit by a bus. I was like, ‘I think it would be funny if I pulled up in a bus and there was blood all over the front of it, implying I ran Darby over.’ They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s cool.’ So I texted them [AEW] and I was like, ‘Hey guys, I don’t want a Lamborghini, I just want a bus. It can be shitty and beat up or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Can we paint blood on the front of it?’

They go, ‘Oh, well, it’s in two days. We don’t know if we can get you a bus in time.’ You can give me a Lamborghini but you can’t find me a bus? So I texted my sister and I told Anna, I was like, ‘I need you guys to find me a bus,’ they went on Facebook Marketplace; they’re magicians. Long story short, there was a bus in my driveway four hours later that I paid cash for. It was an absolute piece of junk.

Driving back, I almost got gassed out with the exhaust coming through the floor, I almost passed out. So we got home and I called my friend Poncho, one of my best friends, he’s sort of a mechanic, sort of not. He helps me with all my crazy projects. He’s like, ‘Yeah, dude, I’ll come over and get it set up.’ So we fixed it enough that it wouldn’t kill me to drive it to Vegas. Then it came time to drive to Vegas. It was me, Anna, and Luchasaurus. The thing has no windows, it has no air conditioning, no windshield wipers. The gas meter doesn’t work. We made it to Rancho Cucamonga and it started smoking and was destroyed.”

It was towed by AAA to Vegas in an event Perry says cost him nearly as much as the bus. When it arrived, it took the work of several AEW workers to get it up and running again. That became the Scapegoat bus shown on AEW programming.

“It was only really meant to be used for that one day to try and run Darby over again. But then I kind of fell in love with it and it was sitting in my driveway. It came time I wanted to do this entrance for, I think it was All Out last year, I was wrestling Bryan Danielson. I had watched The Dark Knight or something, and there were these like armored cars going through the city.

I was telling Luchasaurus, ‘I wanna get an armored car and drive through the city up to the venue.’ He’s like, ‘Dude, I think you should drive the bus, it’s more badass and that’s your thing. Anyone could have an armored car, only you could have this beat-up bus.’ I was like, ‘You know what, dude? You’re right.’ Honestly, it ended up being some of the most fun I’ve ever had, just driving that horrible vehicle around.

When the idea was floated about it returning to become the Jurassic Express, Perry laughed but didn’t turn it down.

“I don’t wanna say too much but I like where you are going with that a lot. I gotta have a bus now. It’s funny, I see all these old guys on the internet, like, ‘He has this piece of shit bus!’ Why are you angry about a bus? I love it. I want a bus at all times now.”

AEW has been taking a more cinematic approach in and out of the ring with characters like “Timeless” Toni Storm, Hangman, and now Jurassic Express. When asked if we can expect to see more cinematic elements in this run — especially after the resurrection vignette — Perry hopes so.

“Yeah, I mean, I would love to. I’m very into film. The most recent one was shot by the AEW guys but I have filmed a fair amount of my vignettes myself. I did the thing with the wall of TVs and some other stuff. It’s interesting, some people don’t like it. I think some people only kinda like stuff that’s very wrestling 101. That’s fine. But I’m interested in that stuff and I would like to do more of it.

I also think with a character like Luchasaurus it makes sense. I would prefer to go off and film something like that than just stand backstage and do the typical thing. I think we now have characters that lend themselves to that. It’s just interesting to me and fun. So I would say yes, if I get my way, you’re definitely gonna see more of that style of stuff.”

Catch Perry on AEW Dynamite Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and streaming simulcast on HBO Max.

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