Pillars: The Potential of ‘Jungle Boy’ Jack Perry

While Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara both debuted in AEW by showing their skills in singles competition, Jungle Boy began his career in the first-ever AEW Casino Battle Royale. He showed up later on in the match, flanked by Billy Gunn, Marq Quen, Glacier, and Ace Romero. Upon hitting the ring, Jungle Boy immediately spiked Joey Janela on his head with a tijeras, then rolled out of the ring as he got smacked in the face by MJF’s forearm.

For the next nine minutes, the only thing of note that Jungle Boy did was get hit by a Fallaway Slam by the joker entrant, “Hangman” Adam Page. After that, Jungle Boy teamed with Marko Stunt for a bit, threw Ace Romero over the rope after Ace eliminated Marko, and climbed Luchasaurus’s shoulders while Luchasaurus kicked a stapler out of Jimmy Havoc’s hand.

Jungle Boy got the better of Jimmy with a flatliner, then tried to use his momentum to throw MJF over the top rope. MJF reversed the attempt, however, and soon enough, Jungle Boy was hanging on for dear life outside of the ring, eventually dropping to the ground after Jimmy Havoc bit his fingers.

It’s not the most exciting start to an AEW career, and if Jungle Boy’s night at Double or Nothing 2019 ended there, you’d think he was just a small, pretty dude who vaguely had a Tarzan gimmick. You’d also know that he’s got an affinity for tag team wrestling and, at least on that night, was a loser. And honestly, those two things were important for the skeleton that was the 2019 Jungle Boy character.

But a few hours later, when Bret Hart hit the ring to unveil the AEW World Championship, it became clear that there were bigger plans for Jungle Boy.

While anyone could have guessed that Hangman was going to be in the world title mix, and it made sense for the MJF character to assume that he was worthy of such a lofty position, Jungle Boy (and Jimmy Havoc) was a surprise to see walking down the ramp to stare down MJF and throw his name into the upper card contention.

Then, MJF scoffed at Jungle Boy, called him a prepubescent boy, and walked off without Jungle Boy doing ANYTHING about it.

So that was Jungle Boy. A tag team wrestler. A pretty boy. The son of Luke Perry.

A loser. And a pushover.

If AEW had any hopes for this Hollywood wild child, they were going to have to rehab his image as early as their inaugural event. And, as time has gone on, AEW has tried many things to tap into the potential that they see in Jungle Boy.

In 2023, he’s being called a Pillar by everyone on TV, despite the oftentimes valid criticisms that his peers throw his way. Has Jungle Boy earned the “Pillar” status? Has he tapped into any of that believed potential?

Let’s look at what’s he’s done over the years and see what landed for “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry.

The Underdog Called Jungle Boy

In 2019, Jungle Boy couldn’t buy a win.

His next match after Double or Nothing was a four-way match at Fyter Fest against Hangman Page, Jimmy Havoc, and MJF — a man who would be a thorn in Jungle Boy’s side throughout this early stage of AEW. Jungle Boy actually did very well here, as this match allowed him to show off all of the incredible lucha moves he had in his arsenal, but in the end, he was a non-factor during the finish. MJF nearly stole the win, but Hangman successfully pinned Havoc, further proving that Hangman was a top guy, MJF had potential (and the benefit of being-a-slimy-heel), and Jungle Boy and Havoc were both kind of just guys.

The tag team aspect of Jungle Boy’s character grew at Fight for the Fallen, as his partnership with Luchasaurus (which saw Luchasaurus carry JB to the ring last show) grew into a trio with Marko Stunt, now dubbed “The Jurassic Express.” According to commentary and a later episode of Being the Elite, Marko was brought into the group because Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus saw heels like MJF picking on Marko backstage, and they wouldn’t stand for it.

This “hero of the locker room” angle continued to paint Jungle Boy in the light of your old school, upstanding babyface, but it didn’t help Jungle Boy win, as he and Luchasaurus lost their debut tag match to the Dark Order.

SCU, the Lucha Bros, Santana & Ortiz, Jimmy Havoc and Joey Janela, Hangman and MJF in the Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal — all of these men took turns beating Jungle Boy in 2019, most of the time pinning Marko Stunt. Jungle Boy was supposed to be the small one beside Luchasaurus, meanwhile Marko was supposed to be the one to make Jungle Boy look more legitimate. Alas, this grouping only held back Jungle Boy as far as his win/loss record, but it was BECAUSE of his shoddy losing streak that Jungle Boy got the biggest match of his young career.

Chris Jericho was feeling himself as AEW World Champion, and while he didn’t want to tangle with Luchasaurus or belittle himself with Marko Stunt, he gladly looked at Jungle Boy and said that Jungle Boy and his winless record couldn’t last 10 minutes with Jericho.

This got Jungle Boy to be a little feisty. He cut his first promo, confidently said he could kick Jericho’s tail, and slapped him across the face. Then, the following week, Jungle Boy ended another brawl with Jericho by rolling him up, and Marko Stunt came in to count the unofficial three-count on the champion. Jericho’s ego got the better of him, and he used his last contractually obligated match of the year on a 10-minute time limit match against “Jungle Jack,” as JR had taken to calling Jungle Boy.

Jericho whipped Jungle Boy around. The Inner Circle got involved. Jericho locked Jungle Boy in a submission for the final minute and a half of the match. Still, Jungle Boy got a draw with the AEW Champion, bringing his overall record to 0-9-1. Jungle Boy couldn’t repeat his unofficial pinfall after the bell, nor did he get another shot against Jericho for a while.

But Jungle Boy did start winning. And the harder he fought, the better he got.

The Workhorse Called Jungle Jack

Jungle Boy definitely wasn’t the top of the heap in AEW, but he and the Jurassic Express started winning matches as soon as he overcame this hurdle with Jericho, sort of proving two things. First, the trio was getting better, as they covered for one another’s weaknesses well — meaning Marko stopped getting pinned every time. The second is that Jungle Boy himself was getting better and growing in confidence, as it can’t be a coincidence that the biggest ego booster of his career happened right before a pair of wins right at the start of 2020.

Jungle Boy wasn’t doing much of anything on TV as Revolution 2020 came and went — though he did get an incidental victory over Jericho’s Inner Circle, pinning Sammy Guevara thanks to an assist from another Pillar — but around the start of the pandemic, Jungle Boy suddenly popped off.

Jungle Boy’s first real feud after the Jericho fiasco started incidentally enough with MJF using an exhibition match against Jungle Jack to send a message to his actual rival, Cody Rhodes. Having recently gotten his Dynamite Diamond Ring, MJF used it to bonk Jungle Boy on the head, then hit Jungle Boy with a Cross Rhodes for three.

It wasn’t personal, and it truly had nothing to do with Jungle Boy, but there was something between these two. Maybe it was the youth. Maybe it was the previous run-ins. But these two had people in the YouTube comments wanting to see way more of the two of them. Luckily, AEW delivered in time for their spring pay-per-view.

Just before the pandemic, MJF and his newfound bodyguards in The Butcher and The Blade beat Jurassic Express on Dynamite, but the following week, Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus got their win back against Butcher and Blade alone. MJF, meanwhile, didn’t wrestle again for the next two months, talking a lot of trash in the meantime but only wrestling Lee Johnson and Marko Stunt before his hyped up pay-per-view match against Jungle Boy.

Once again, the two were bound by their youth more than anything, though MJF made the feud a bit more personal on the road to the show by trashing Marko’s name and hitting Marko with the Dynamite Diamond. For this reason, you could see Jungle Boy getting a lot more aggressive with MJF during the Double or Nothing match, with him stopping MJF’s chain grappling offense to just ground and pound him like it’s UFC.

The rest of the match saw them competing with each other using the other’s game. Jungle Boy did try to chain grapple with MJF while not punching him in the face; MJF, for his part, showcased his natural gifts as a high-flyer, showing that he doesn’t use them because he doesn’t want to. Both men got angrier with one another as the fight went on, with Jungle Boy lighting MJF up with elbows and chops while MJF open-hand slapped Jungle Boy multiple times, but in the end, it wasn’t aggression or even the typical cheating that saw MJF get the pin. MJF just locked in the better pin, and young Jungle Jack simply couldn’t kick out.

Though Jungle Boy lost this fight against one of his closest contemporaries, it still elevated him, or at least solidified that Jungle Boy could bring it when given the spotlight. Four days after Double or Nothing, Jungle Boy eliminated MJF, Wardlow, and Orange Cassidy from a battle royale to get a shot at Cody’s TNT Championship, giving Jungle Boy his first title match in AEW, and it was one that had nothing to do with Jurassic Express.

Jungle Boy lost the match to Cody, but he won just about every match he had afterwards. MJF and Wardlow, the Lucha Brothers, Dark Order — outside of repeated losses to the Elite and the occasional loss to FTR or the Inner Circle, Jungle Boy was on absolute fire after this MJF match.

Though he did get a Tag Team Championship shot in August 2020 (one of those aforementioned losses to the Elite), Jungle Boy’s third title match and second singles title match came in early 2021 as he once again challenged for the TNT Championship. This time, though, the champion wasn’t a main event player like Cody Rhodes, but instead a fellow underdog in Darby Allin, someone Jungle Boy hadn’t seen since Darby helped JB pin Sammy Guevara in that trios match a year earlier.

Their match wasn’t groundbreaking, but it symbolized something great for the young roster of AEW. Here, we had two young guys who got their big breaks in AEW, and both of them were now legitimate title holders or contenders. While this is cool for AEW, what this showed for Jungle Boy was that he was still a step below his peers, as once again, he lost clean to a man who, in about a month’s time, would soon be called a fellow “Pillar.”

Jungle Boy had the win/loss record. He had Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” as a theme song. But he just didn’t have what it took to become a champion yet.

He couldn’t do it on his own. He couldn’t do it with Luchasaurus or Marko Stunt. Something was missing.

The Contender Called Jack Perry

Jungle Boy was a proven winner, and it turned out that he was especially good in battle royals, winning the TNT Title #1 Contendership battle royal that led to the Cody match, making it to the final five in the Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal in 2020, and being the last person eliminated in the Tag Team Casino Battle Royal at Revolution 2021.

When the stakes were at their highest, though, Jungle Boy finally won an over-the-top-rope match at Double or Nothing 2021, last eliminating the recently debuting and on-top-of-the-world Christian Cage to become #1 Contender for the AEW World Championship.

Jungle Boy’s match against Kenny Omega was treated like a big deal for Jungle Boy, especially now that he had the killer submission finisher that was the Snare Trap; for Kenny, this was just another great match and successful title defense. Still, Jungle Boy looked like a star (and, on Twitter, announced that he was dating Anna Jay, which was as impressive as any world title).

Jungle Boy’s next match was his 50^th victory in AEW, with Jungle Jack becoming the first competitor in any AEW division to receive this honor, and he was gifted a trophy for accomplishing this feat. However, he wasn’t able to bathe in the glory of this win for long, as opponent Jack Evans’s stable, the Hardy Family Office, ran out to attack Jungle Boy and company.

Marko Stunt and Luchasaurus came out to help Jungle Boy as per usual, but the bigger change to the status quo was Christian Cage’s appearance in the post-match brawl, assisting Jungle Boy and aligning with the Jurassic Express.

This wasn’t the first time they’d been on the same side, as Jungle Boy and Christian teamed up for the first time earlier that month to face the HFO after Double or Nothing. From here on, though, Christian was the unofficial fourth member of the group, if not the third member, as Christian pushed Marko down the totem pole.

In fact, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt never had a single tag team or trios match together for the rest of their respective AEW runs, with Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus teaming up more regularly and Christian taking Marko’s spot whenever they needed a third—and that was something Jurassic Express desperately needed against the SuperKliq.

Adam Cole and the Young Bucks’ reformed trio were interlocked with Christian’s Jurassic Express between Cole’s debut at All Out 2021 and Full Gear that November. For the most part, Jungle Boy and friends were obstacles in the way of Adam Cole’s rise to the top of AEW. In Christian’s mind, however, this was a chance to make Jungle Boy something different.

Like with MJF, Jungle Boy could never sink to Adam Cole’s level, even as Christian Cage touted the effect of the Con-Chair-To move that Christian and Edge popularized decades ago. Because of this, Cole kept stealing wins from the trio, even though Jungle Boy proved he could beat Bobby Fish one-on-one despite interference. Jungle Boy had the skills, but at Full Gear, it was violence, a Con-Chair-To, and a new look with a beard and jeans that saw him get the win.

Christian Cage tapped into a more vicious Jungle Boy, and he sent Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus straight toward the AEW Tag Team Championships from here. And, as soon as AEW entered 2022, Christian’s goal was achieved: Jurassic Express were tag team champions, and Jungle Boy earned his first title.

Like the workhorse he was, Jungle Boy (and Luchasaurus, of course) defended those championships like crazy, turning back the Factory, the Dark Order, Private Party, the Gunn Club, reDRagon and the Young Bucks, the Acclaimed, and Team Taz and Swerve in Our Glory.

All the while, Christian Cage seemed to be talking trash that Jurassic Express had to back up. Jurassic Express had to defend their titles in two separate triple threat matches, wrestled a brutal schedule in general, and were finally forced to defend their championships against AEW’s best tag team, the Young Bucks, in a ladder match. Looking at the stats, it was no wonder that Jurassic Express lost, but Christian acted shocked, and he used this as an excuse to finally betray Jungle Boy.

Christian Cage resented Jungle Boy for winning at Double or Nothing a year ago, but if the kid that beat him could BE something, Christian figured he’d be a fool not to hitch his wagon to the Jungle Boy. Christian even tried to morph Jungle Boy into someone more like him, but Jungle Boy didn’t remain ruthless. He got pushed there once, but as soon as the SuperKliq were defeated, Jungle Boy was just Jungle Boy again.

After this betrayal, Jungle Boy would be out of action for nearly three months, and while he was out, Christian took everything from him. Marko was gone. Luchasaurus turned heel. The mentor that gave him the Con-Chair-To and the Killswitch was badmouthing Jungle Boy’s late father and trying to seduce his single mom.

Jungle Boy came back, now officially going by “‘Jungle Boy’ Jack Perry,” and tried to save something. He pled with Luchasaurus, and in kind, Luchasaurus reset to being a good guy. But as soon as Jack finally got his mitts on Christian at All Out, Luchasaurus showed his new true colors and stabbed one more knife in his back, walloping his former tag partner and letting Christian beat him in 24 seconds.

Due to injuries, this feud became very start-stop. Jack got a pair of matches against Luchasaurus across the next two months (in which they traded wins), then a buried alive match with Christian in March 2023 that finally closed the book on the Jack Perry/Christian Cage saga. In the meantime, Jack won a whole lot of TV matches and flirted with the idea of tagging with Hook full-time, but he meandered for a long while, with the lack of Christian, Luchasaurus, Marko, or anyone else to ground him leaving him floundering.

Jungle Boy and the Other Pillars

Of the Pillars, Jack Perry has the least to say about the other three, and this coincides with the fact that he’s had a bit less success than the others. A tag title run is awesome, but it doesn’t hold up especially great beside two- and three-time TNT Champions and an AEW World Champion.

Jungle Boy’s only meaningful relationship with any of the Pillars is a rivalry with MJF from three years ago, and this lack of being interwoven with the others has shown throughout the past few months.

Jack’s biggest problem with Sammy Guevara is that Sammy is a bad guy, but he likes how Sammy wrestles. Jack’s biggest problem with Darby Allin is that he’s a fellow good guy, but he’s anti-social.

MJF is Jungle Boy’s only rival of the bunch, and even there, the relationship is more that MJF sees potential in Jack Perry as a villain like himself, whereas Jungle Jack only wishes that he could have MJF’s confidence. Like with Guevara, Jack’s biggest beef with MJF is that Max is a bad person.

Because he either hasn’t feuded with any of them either at all or in three years, there’s lots of potential for extended feuds between Jungle Boy and Darby, Jack and Sammy, Perry and MJF. But the problem with envisioning any of those feuds is that Jungle Boy still isn’t much more than “a good guy.”

He’s been violent against two guys, but never for sustained periods. He’s been the star of a trio, but they’ve all drifted apart. He found his “forever rival,” but his rival is the current AEW Champion and seems leagues above him at this rate. And if we go all the way back, Jack Perry never really acted like a “jungle boy” to begin with.

“Jungle Boy” Jack Perry has lots of potential IF he can learn to cut promos, IF he can find his character, IF he can find his way into a rivalry where he has motivation.

But the thing about having potential is that it implies you’re not there already.

Jack Perry is arguably the only one of the Four Pillars that has no obvious shot at becoming AEW World Champion if he doesn’t win on Sunday, with MJF and Darby feeling mostly complete and Sammy always circling the upper card.

If Jack doesn’t capitalize on this “potential” soon, he might never main event a pay-per-view again.