Dominic Garrini: Chris Hero Returning To The Independents Is A Win For The Independents

Chris Hero is set to make his return to wrestling on November 17 when he faces Timothy Thatcher at West Coast Pro Wrestling. 

Hero hasn’t wrestled since April 2020 when he was competing for NXT UK. Hero is one of the most respected names in pro wrestling and one of the most decorated independent wrestlers in history. 

Speaking to Jeremy Lambert & Stephen Jensen on The Spotlight, one-half of the GCW Tag Team Champions Dominic Garrini commented on Hero’s return. 

“My good friend, Derek Dillinger, who is my co-trainer at the school, he’s a direct disciple of Chris, they talk pretty regularly. We just had Chris in for a seminar about a month ago. I’m so excited for Chris to comeback. I remember when he first got released, Thorne [AIW promoter John Thorne] had wanted to book him on multiple dates for AIW and one of the matches was going to be Lee Moriarty just because we knew how important that match was for both of them. I think he wanted to do three. Moriarty, Derek wanted to wrestle him really bad, and I wanted to wrestle him really bad. He wanted to try and do all three. Chris, at the time, he wanted to take that time off,” said Dominic. 

He continued, “Independent wrestling with Chris Hero is entirely better. Chris has been doing a lot with AEW as a producer, but him coming back to the independents to help teach young wrestlers and work with them is going to be paramount to independent wrestling. What a lot of people don’t understand is that when I came along in 2015, there was a large amount of independent wrestling veterans that young wrestlers could learn from, get in the ring with, and be infinitely better for wrestling them. WWE and AEW coming along has really robbed that talent base from the indies. Talented independent wrestlers that wrestlers can learn from are mostly all under contract now. There are exceptions to that rule. I think Tony Deppen is one of those exceptions. If you wrestle Tony, you’re probably going to get an amazing match out of him and he’s going to teach you a lot. Tracy Williams is another guy like that. I learned so much working with him in EVOLVE. Chris coming back gives one of those veterans back to the independents that will be extremely important to the growth of young wrestlers because a lot of the time now, the independents is a lot of young guys working with young guys, having the best match on the card, but not necessarily learning as much as they need to. The hope here is, guys like Chris Hero, guys like myself and Kevin [Kevin Ku] being out there and being veterans helping young kids out, it’s infinitely better. I’m so happy Chris is coming back and he gets to wrestle Thatcher, who is awesome. It’s going to make everything and everyone better.”

Fans can find Hero’s explanation for why he’s taken so long to return and why he decided to return by clicking here. 

Check out the full interview with Dominic in the video above.