Having Tarzan Boy as his theme music has changed the game for Jungle Boy.
At the beginning of 2021, Tony Khan bought the rights to use Baltimora's hit song and gifted it to Jungle Boy for Christmas.
At AEW Double or Nothing, Jungle Boy won the Casino Battle Royal and is next in line for a shot at Kenny Omega's AEW World Championship. At the post-show media scrum, he told Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp that hearing the song play and having the crowd react so strongly has helped ease a lot of his pre-match jitters.
"I feel very terrible before I wrestle," Jungle Boy shared. "Every single time. Sometimes I'll be walking to the curtain and I'll pull a trash can and throw right up in it and then walk out. I get super, super nervous. Then, now, as I was saying, the second that music comes on I can hear the whole thing and immediately it goes away. I feel I'm ready to go, I'm ready to do it. Which, it always went away at a certain point, but to hear that big of a reaction so immediately, and to see those people having such a good time, it's great. I think it's going to help me a lot."
Having used the song before his arrival in AEW, Jungle Boy shared the origins of it becoming his theme, and how he feels it is going to propel him to the next level. Here is what he said:
"The song originally was Joey Janela's idea and I had never heard it before. He said, 'you have to come out to this.' I didn't know what it was and I thought it was a little bit goofy, but I saw immediately how much people enjoyed it and that just made me fall in love with it. Then I felt my time with it had come to an end when I came here, and it was actually something Tony [Khan] had mentioned a long time ago. He was really excited about it. He's like, 'I'm going to get it for you.' I was like, 'alright, if you can do that, that's awesome, but I'm not expecting it.' Then I'm not exactly sure how that all works, but he did it, somehow, right at the beginning of the new year. I felt like that kind of changed the game for me and shot me to a whole new level. He really is the best, in so many ways. So generous and passionate and excited about so many things. So I'm really appreciative he would do that for me."
Jungle Boy won the Battle Royal by last eliminating Christian Cage. The veteran congratulated Jungle Jack, as Jim Ross calls him, and told him to go win the Championship.
Visit Fightful's YouTube channel to watch all of the AEW Double or Nothing scrums, as well as our post-show review podcast.
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