Jack Perry Discusses AEW Return, Jurassic Express Reunion [Exclusive]

Jack Perry has been absent from wrestling for nine months but from AEW for nearly a year. After losing the TNT Championship at Full Gear, he competed in just two other events before his break. He returned at All Out alongside Luchasaurus, reforming Jurassic Express for the first time in three years.

As AEW Dynamite approaches its six-year anniversary, VICE spoke to Perry in an exclusive interview. In part one, he discusses his return, reuniting Jurassic Express, the four pillars storyline, the rebirth of the tag team division, and more.

“I feel great to be back. Especially under these circumstances with someone who’s one of my best friends, and I mean, so much has happened. It’s something that was always gonna happen, us coming back together. So many things have gotten in the way so for it to finally come to fruition and then get that kind of response feels great.

In terms of physicality, this is the longest that I’ve gone [without wrestling] in my life since I was like 16 or 17 years old. I’m sure it’s gonna feel absolutely horrible the day after my first match back; that’s just part of the game. But I’m looking forward to it.”

Perry was on the run of his career (thus far) as a heel. At the time, he aligned with the Young Bucks and Kazuchika Okada to form an offshoot of The Elite, but later disappeared. Perry wasn’t expecting to be off as long as he was. In fact, he confirms there were talks for a program with Kenny Omega this year that were ultimately scrapped.

“I did not know I was gonna be off for as long as I was. I thought I was gonna be off a month or two and then be back. But then things just change a lot and that’s how it goes. I will say, Luchasaurus and I were always going to be back together doing something. We knew that from the day that we broke up as a tag team the first time. I also felt I had such a good run the year before. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to top that right now.’ We concluded this is probably the best time for us to do this.

Bringing His Love of Film to His Wrestling

“It’s weird ’cause we thought this would be so easy. We’ll just tell ’em we want to do it again and that’ll happen. It turned out to be just about the hardest thing in the world to get it all to line up. It all came together, not the way we planned, but I think in a really cool way with these vignettes of him being resurrected it was kind of a happy accident.

The vignettes have a very cinematic flair reminiscent of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Perry explained that as a movie buff, he really wanted to incorporate Saw as well, but it didn’t happen.

“We were gonna do a couple of me first sort of like digging up this grave and dragging this coffin and you didn’t know whose it was and it was gonna be his reveal at the end. And then he ended up having to go back for some other stuff. We were thinking Saw, where they end up going back at the end of the movie and showing you how the beginning got set up. So, I don’t know, I think it all turned out super cool. Not the way we necessarily had planned it, but it felt perfect the way it all came together.”

Breaking Free from “Jungle Boy” and Becoming “Jack Perry”

While fans have always enjoyed Perry’s character work as Jungle Boy or the Scapegoat, Perry found it hard to break free of the perception created when he stepped into his role as a heel.

 ”It’s interesting because Jungle Boy was really the only character I ever had. It started as a joke; someone gave it to me as a nickname. What I really liked about it was, on the independents, everyone has all the answers. People were always trying to push me to be my dad and do 90210. They’re like, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be funny if you’re from Beverly Hills and this and that?’ No, guys. I really don’t want to do that. I’m trying to do my own thing here. So when I got the Jungle Boy thing, they’d say, ‘Can you send a promo and say this?’

And I was like, ‘I’m Jungle Boy. I don’t know how to talk. All I know how to do is wrestle. I’m like a monkey.’ Whatever. But the character worked; people always liked it. What I loved was it allowed me to wrestle, which at that time was all I was interested in. So I ended up making it to national TV with this character that was kind of a joke.

I’ve been told before, ‘We’re not gonna put you on our show ’cause this character’s too goofy and it’s ridiculous,’ And then here I am on TV, my partners are a Dinosaur and Marko Stunt and it worked somehow. The thing I ran into eventually was when it came time for me to start talking more. I didn’t really know what Jungle Boy would say but I also felt like me, who I actually am, didn’t really fit that either. By the time I got to the Scapegoat thing, I was so not worried about that anymore because I’d realized some people are gonna not like me no matter what I do.”

Discovering Wrestling Tumblr

Perry admits that while he was away from the ring, he discovered what Tumblr is. While the site is long past its heyday, fandoms from all walks of life keep the site running day in and day out. He’s not the first wrestler to step into the world of wrestling Tumblr — the Young Bucks are one of many other examples of this.

“In my time off, I ended up discovering what Tumblr was. I saw all this art and great stuff, and people who wanted to create things. There was a time where I think everyone was more obsessed, but I’d always look on Twitter and it was like half the people loved it and half the people, if not more, were just telling me how horrible all this was.

I would rather wrestle for the people on Tumblr than the people on Twitter. I just want to do what I want to do and entertain people. There are people who appreciate it and take it and are inspired by it. And then, to me, if you’re a grown adult who wants to sit at home and just talk shit about wrestling — you know, you can do whatever you want, but it doesn’t seem like the most productive thing to me.

I’m not gonna sit here and try and impress you if you’re determined to hate me. So with the more artistic stuff, I get a lot of, as I said, the old guys. ‘This is weird,’ Dude, whatever. It’s not for you guys. I’m not wrestling for a 60-year-old man. If you love it, that’s great. Nothing against you. But it’s for a different group for the most part.

 So I feel now the most free I’ve ever felt to be me and do what I like to do. I’m sure that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s totally okay, but I am really enjoying it, which at this point for me is the most important thing.

The Unforgettable Pillars Promo

When the conversation shifted toward the four pillars (Perry, Sammy Guevara, Darby Allin, MJF), he didn’t hold back on his feelings. Perry had always been the outlier in the feud, one that was severely underestimated. The reception online was that he stuck out like a sore thumb. Perry doesn’t disagree with these comments.

“The pillars thing up to that point was the most miserable I had ever been. I didn’t wanna do that at that time. I literally said, I begged, I was like, ‘Can we do this later? I feel like this is only really benefiting one person and we all could grow so much more.’ I had just beaten Christian when that happened and then Christian got injured and that whole thing took way longer than it was supposed to.

I was kinda floating around killing time until he got back so I could beat him. After I beat him, the next thing I got put in was that. I was like, ‘Could you guys let me get going a little bit? Sammy could be built up even more, Darby, and this could be a huge thing where any one of us could win the world title at the end of this.’

I felt so not good about what I was doing at the point I was at. I really felt people were starting to turn on me a little there. And I thought, ‘I think I should lean into that and like make this story here. Am I gonna turn to win the world title?’ That was met with people being like, ‘No, you gotta stay [face]! You’re Jungle Boy,’ yeah, but Jungle Boy has nothing to say and people are starting to not like me. As soon as I started to tease that I was gonna go the other way, people were interested again because I was interested again.

The heel turn was like a whole new world for me. My main thing there was people told me, ‘you’re never gonna be able to be a heel.’ I knew I could. Obviously, I wasn’t the greatest in the world. There were parts of it that were rocky and I had to figure it out ’cause I’d been Jungle Boy my whole life. To me, it was just to prove that I could do it.”

Who is Jack Perry Now?

Perry’s return has been met with confusion about whether he’s a betweener or a face. He sets the record straight, noting that he prefers when it’s not so “black and white.”

“It was interesting with the Scapegoat thing because I would get a mixed reaction. At certain times, I almost felt like a babyface. My idea was, I’m not the bad guy, I’m really the ultimate good guy here. I think it’s more interesting when it’s not so black and white and I think even if it’s leaning more towards the babyface side, I think there’s definitely a darker vibe with both of us than there was before. It’s a story, it’s always evolving. We are evolving. The sort of world that we are in is evolving. I think the more we can be open to that the more interesting it’ll be and the better it is.”

Jurassic Express Reunites for the First time in Three Years

At All Out, Jurassic Express not only returned, but they came back with their iconic theme, “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora. Is the tune officially here to stay, or is a new theme in the works? Perry believes it isn’t going anywhere.

“I think the song is here to stay. It’s funny ’cause I was thinking about that. I was like, ‘I don’t know, we have a different look.’ The thing that solidified it for me was that people were singing it before we even played it. I looked, it’s been like three years, like a thousand something days since Luchasaurus and I have been on screen together.

I’ve been off about a year, I was the Scapegoat before this, I’m wearing all black with a knife on my belt. He’s in all black and people are singing that song. I think in the time that we had it, it cut deep with people. I think there is an interesting thing when I watch shows, I get a lot of inspiration from shows and movies, but I just watched this show, Hunting Wives on Netflix.

What I really liked about it was on the surface level, it’s this community and they’re all happy and they go to church, then underneath it, there’s all this dark kind of undercurrent going on. White Lotus is another show like that. There’s lighthearted funniness to it and happiness and whatever, and it’s silly. Then there’s murder going on underneath it all. I’m interested in experimenting with the duality of something like the song and our new presentation.”

Rebirth of the AEW Tag Team Division

As aforementioned, Jurassic Express hasn’t teamed together in three years. After the split, Luchasaurus became Killswitch and worked alongside Christian until he fell ill with severe pneumonia last year and had to be hospitalized. When he returned in August, he briefly aligned with Nick Wayne, Kip Sabian, and Mother Wayne.

Even in the last nine months, the AEW tag team division made a complete 180.

 ”I felt like we were on top of our game, and I felt like when we lost those [the tag titles], I felt, and maybe this is just me being biased to our stuff, but I felt like that was kind of the end of that original AEW tag team division. Not that that’s a bad thing, it had to end at some point and evolve and it went in a different direction. You ended up getting great things like The Acclaimed for example. But the original day one tag team division, I felt that ended the night that we lost them.

I think at first people dug us, but we weren’t necessarily pegged to be the champions or anything like that. Day one, it was like we were figuring out what we were, and there were all these other teams more established. We sort of rose up to be neck and neck with these guys. So I think if we’re gonna do this again, I wanna do it better than we did before.

I think we’re both more comfortable in our own skin. We both learned a lot; we have more experience. I’m gonna go ahead and say where I feel like we were sort of the end of the original tag team division, us coming back is gonna mark the beginning of the new tag team division.”

Stay tuned for part two of our interview with Jack Perry dropping later this week on VICE.

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