Update on John Hennigan’s journey on CBS’ Survivor

Impact Wrestling champion John Hennigan is currently participating in the 37th season of Survivor: David vs Goliath on CBS.

But his time on the show as a player ended yesterday after he got blindsided in one of the most exciting tribal councils ever. Hennigan was not even on the chopping block but when the two alliances played a hidden immunity idol to save their own members, two other players from the David tribe gambled big, writing John’s name, and it paid off.

“That was off the top rope, bro!” said one of the players as Hennigan’s torch was snuffed by host Jeff Probst. But the Impact star took it in good stride, admitting the awesome blindside. “Ironically I was talking about a Brochacho blindside tonight, but I was talking about Christian…and it ended up being me!”

Earlier in the show in one of the one-on-one interviews with players, Hennigan told cameras that Christian, an “honorary Brochacho member” would get the axe tonight in a blindside, and told the camera “hashtag Brochacho Blindside”

Hennigan will still be part of the rest of the show as a jury member.

In post-show comments to Entertainment Weekly, Jeff Probst said that the producers really wanted John on the Goliath tribe but there was a scheduling issue and they were notified that he couldn’t make it, calling the decision a major disappointment.

“Then one day, I got a call — “His schedule changed, he can do it!” It was one of the best days in casting because we knew John would bring the physical representation of a Goliath but also many more layers that would surprise people,” Probst said. “John’s a deep thinker and a smart guy. We hated to lose him. I think if he played again, he might play a bit more aggressively, but I really enjoyed having him on the island.”

Hennigan then explained the problem with going to the show saying that he left for Fiji just 36 hours after he finished Lucha Underground season 4. “The producers of Lucha Underground had to bend over backwards to get me wrapped out of the season to leave for Survivor,” John said. “And then certainly I am the Impact Wrestling world champion and I had just signed a deal with Impact Wrestling at the time, and they had to bend over backwards to agree to let me miss two months of wrestling bookings based on a contract that I had just signed recently. So two wrestling organizations both bent over backwards to make the schedule work.”

The champ added that he lost around 25 pounds while he was on the island but said he regained them in just three days…although it wasn’t muscle!

“I didn’t feel like regular Slamtown for a couple of months. More than just muscle mass, it was the athletic functional ability and cardio and muscle and balance and endurance. The fatigue and starvation actually affected me more physically than I anticipated,” he told EW.COM.