WWE Superstar Samoa Joe was today’s guest on Talk is Jericho and you can listen to the entire interview at this link. Below are a few of the highlights from the podcast.
On Not Starting Out on the Main Roster:
I think the original ordeal was to bring me in as just the NXT guy. We got such a good response with everything that it kind of really blew up beyond that and here I am now on the main roster. I think it was a cultural thing in WWE of why they didn’t bring me up right away to the main roster. I think that for a long time, kind of past TNA prodigy talent had done well, and I think there was a major push in the company where they build guys from scratch, and put a tremendous amount of stock into the Performance Center, which is producing great talent, so it was kind of like, this guy can help us build NXT as a brand but maybe not necessarily be something—I guess to the company’s credit, it wasn’t something that was set in stone, it was kind of the scenario that was laid up before me where they said, listen, we can use you at NXT, but we don’t really think that it’ll go much beyond that, but at the same time, it was kind of like having confidence in yourself where I was able to show them why I belong on the main stage, so I really wasn’t worried. It was kind of like a foot in the door ordeal and I also had a lot of good people pulling for me at the time so it worked out. I don’t mind underpromised, I really despise being overpromised. You will work for and with people who will sit there and promise you the world and can’t deliver, so if you underpromise, it’s almost as if what I can give you, anything over that you are kind of overachieving in a sense, and that was my relationship with Hunter where he didn’t promise me anything, very little as a matter of fact, but as I kept going to NXT and kept working with the company and had a pretty good relationship with the company, it grew beyond that.
On How They Contacted Him to Come to WWE:
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.
On His First Experience at NXT:
Originally, I remember, my first meeting with Hunter he told me, listen, we’re not going to sit here and pay you to train and I understood it. I would have done it if asked because I believe in showing good faith and don’t see anything wrong with that. I think if you are good enough to do something you don’t sweat the small stuff. It was literally like, listen, we have a bunch of road shows coming up, we really wanted to keep the buzz about the road shows and out of Florida so we really need you for those and bring you for TV’s and can work wherever else you wanted. It was basically a deal where I showed them my calendar and cleared some dates for them because they had the first choice and we basically went from there. It’s funny because I work every other week and had the time off with a decent wage, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing at all.
On Getting to Keep the Samoa Joe Name:
It was always the case I was going to be Samoa Joe. I tell guys too, I had made the effort to come up here and trademark my name, which made the process a lot easier because if I own it then it is easier for me to lease it to WWE or let them use it so guys who don’t own their names, you don’t own your name it’s not you, they’ll take it from you. Or even former employers, I have seen where that has become an issue where they’ll say, oh that name is ours and it’s kind of like, no it’s not, but I remember when I first came in and we had a meeting. It was me, Canyon [Ceman], and a few others and I think at the end of the meeting Canyon asked what we are going to call me because he wanted to work in the branding department to figure it all out and Hunter turned over to him and said Samoa Joe and asked if I was on it, and I said of course, so I kind of got the logic because it was like, do we want to spend 5 months rebranding this guy, or we start moving stuff out right off the gate. I have not worked with any other name.
