Samoa Joe, the Samoan behemoth from Southern California, is your new NXT Champion after dethroning Finn Balor at an NXT house show last week. The change of champions brings with it a load of questions. How long will Joe keep the strap? Is this just a grooming for his eventual call-up to the main roster? What kind of faith does the WWE brass have in Joe’s product?
Joe visited the Sam Roberts podcast this week to speak on a few of these issues, and he first tackled how he was able to keep the moniker that has traveled with him for over a decade.
My lawyer is dope. Yeah, but I’m really super over and awesome, so that helps. I think the biggest thing really is when they looked at the situation, which was very unique that I was coming into, and AJ [Styles]’s much the same way. It’s very unique where we have decade-plus careers and decade-plus name recognition behind us that it’s more of a benefit to keep us as we are, so I think that’s the biggest thing. And for branding purposes and all that, I understand their business acumen behind trying to change somebody’s name. But, at the same time, do we want to start moving stuff a couple of months down the line or start moving stuff on night one? And that was a motivating factor, too. I mean, it was financially smart and it was creatively smart, so I think that was the biggest thing that went into it.
Joe also spoke on his brief interactions with Vince.
Vince is the ultimate poker player and you’ll never know [what he thinks of your character]. Oh no, it was ‘very nice to meet you’ and then it’s like this coy smile where he’s like, ‘very nice to meet you’, but on the other side it’s like, ‘pfft, you ain’t sh*t’. I couldn’t tell, man. I’ve been at the table with some really great poker players. I’m sure Vince McMahon is a hell of a poker player.
Vince has always liked monsters in his product dating back to the ’70s, and during the ’80s when Hulkamania was running wild, McMahon regularly fed Hogan a steady stream of big guys. Right now, WWE doesn’t have too many big guys who can wrestle their asses off like Joe, so it’d behoove McMahon to keep an eye on him. Joe makes a strong case for being a top title contender on the main roster against a number of guys. Hopefully, behind that poker face, is a man pining for a Samoan submission machine on Raw.
