Samoa Joe is settled in and ready to defend the gold.
WrestleZone Senior Editor Matt Black recently spoke with the AEW World Champion to promote his involvement in the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League video game. Joe plays the role of King Shark in the upcoming game.
Before discussing the Rocksteady-published game, Joe shared how he celebrated his AEW World Championship win. Joe was asked in an interview with the New York Post if he felt that Adam Cole’s Devil reveal took away from his title celebration. Joe said no, because he’s not a child. He then sarcastically asked if he was supposed to hug kids and high-five a bald eagle.
Samoa Joe didn’t have a ‘traditional’ on-air celebration, but Black followed up and asked what a no-expenses-spared championship party would look like.
“Well, that’s the thing, actually I did celebrate. I celebrated in spades. I immediately took a private jet to London to celebrate the New Year with friends and family amongst the beautiful downtown crowd down there in London. After which, I flew back to the States down to Miami for a few days,” Joe explained. “[I] rented a boat, took it out for a little bit, did a little championship cruise. Headed back to my house, and now we settled in, and now we’re ready to defend the championship.”
The toughest sheep I’ve slaughtered
Samoa Joe’s first test as AEW Champion was a title defense against HOOK on the January 17 episode of Dynamite. Joe walked away victorious, but HOOK was a worthy opponent.
“What a tough kid. I mean of all the lambs that I’ve slaughtered lately that was by far the toughest sheep I’ve ever had encountered. Let’s be honest here. I mean, HOOK is very young. He’s a very tough and very durable individual, incredibly strong for his size. I will admit that. But when it comes down to it, he’s the type of dangerous individual that I knew I needed to squash out immediately. You gotta go after the dangers in this world. And you know, he’s a very, very dangerous young man who’s still becoming the predator that someday he hopes to be. But I was more than happy to remind him of his place in the grander scheme of things and how the food chain works.”
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is tied to the Arkham universe the developer established over the course of three all-time great games. Joe spoke about what it means to be part of Rocksteady family. He called it a surreal experience and a great honor.
“I’m overjoyed. It’s a fantastic opportunity to create something with a company that created a trilogy that brought me hours of enjoyment and that I played through in full. It’s just surreal in a lot of instances, too to see I’m in a game for Rocksteady. And for maybe the average person, that may not be a huge thing,” Samoa Joe pointed out. “But for people who are involved in games who know what the Arkham series meant to the industry as a whole. How genre-defining it was, how much modern-day action games are kind of really based on the principles set forth in Arkham. I mean, it was an easy yes. And it was a tremendous honor.”
Making it my own
King Shark has been portrayed quite a bit in various forms of media in recent years. This includes a memorable performance by Sylvester Stallone in James Gunn’s 2021 The Suicide Squad film. Joe says he didn’t try to borrow from any of them for his version. Instead, he tried to make it his own since Shark’s range was so different between the other portrayals.
“I think by default, I kind of had to do the make it my own approach because the different versions of King Shark are so vastly different. There’s so much, man. From mindless savage beast to very funny, comedic sidekick to, you know, [his ‘…hand’ line in The Suicide Squad]. I mean, he really runs the gamut of a lot of different characters,” Joe said.
“So I knew this shark was definitely on the hyper-intelligence side. He definitely is a character that has been kind of locked away from the world. But [he has] read everything about it and is beyond excited to be out in it. And yeah, it’s definitely more of a shark-filled with wonder,” Samoa Joe explained. “But mainly because he’s finally being unleashed on the world, and he’s just taking it all in and having a lot of fun.”
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League will be released on February 2, 2024 for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, and for PC.
Check out our full interview with Samoa Joe below:
If you use any of these quotes, please credit WrestleZone with a link to this article for the transcription.
