Samoa Joe already had a lifetime’s worth of wrestling accolades and accomplishments before he signed with WWE. For over a decade, fans hoped to see him in WWE, and he’s already made history since signing, becoming the first two-time NXT Champion. It’s taken him until he was 38 years old to make it to the WWE main roster, but he’s here now and the reports say the company wants him to be a big deal, long-term.
Joe spent several years making a name for himself in Japan and Ring of Honor before signing with TNA in 2005, which is where he remained for a decade. You don’t spend that long in wrestling without making some serious friends and connections, and Joe recently revealed on Talk is Jericho that it took a lot of those friends to finally get him his NXT contract. And naturally, it all started with Paul Heyman. (Transcript via WrestleZone.)
“It was definitely kind of something that happened through a network. I think my first contact was Paul Heyman. I had sent him a Direct Tweet. I had known Paul for a number of years and I simply said, hey Paul, I’m not on paper anywhere and wanted to pick your brain and see what you thought on the things I can do and how I should proceed and if you know Paul, you know that he went into overdrive and from there I really didn’t have a lay of the land as far as who was in the office and who was in Talent Relations and who was doing things over here anymore because I was just so disconnected and like I said I didn’t know who was in charge of Talent Relations and who called the shots anymore because things had changed because of the 9 years I spent in TNA, so it was like, who do you know?
“I think the next conversations was with Joey Mercury and he asked me if I was done in TNA. I have known Mercury for years back when I was in ROH. From there, Road Dogg and a bunch of other guys had gotten into Triple H’s ear so he said let’s have a meeting and we set a meeting and sat down and talked about it and went from there.
“In a way, it was kind of like new ground for me and for the company because they had written a lot of us off. I don’t think it was out of malice and spite, but they had an edict they had and wanted to follow and I get that, but it wasn’t something they thought it was a possibility but I think Hunter saw it as a possibility that a lot of other people didn’t and it went from there. I had a TNA stamp. They didn’t want to sit there and rely on other people that had done things in other places, they wanted to be built in the realm of WWE. Like I said, I didn’t necessarily agree with it but I get it, but I understood where they were coming from. The edict has been definitely modified and adjusted and I think that is awesome.”
It’s been a long and winding road that finally got Joe to WWE, but fans everywhere can be thankful he’s here now. It looks like we have Heyman, Road Dogg and Joey Mercury — among others — to thank for that.
