Samoa Joe is one of the most important wrestlers of the past two decades. Joe has been a vital performer for WWE, NXT, TNA/impact, and Ring of Honor. It's safe to say not too many wrestlers will have the résumé of Samoa Joe.
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Joe's hard-hitting and submission fighting style has made him one of the most believable big men in all of wrestling. Combined with the fact that Joe is one of the best wrestlers on the mic, he is truly one of a kind. Now that Joe is in AEW, it's a perfect time to look back at his career and the moments that are iconic to his career.
10 UPW Days With John Cena
After being trained by Cincinnati Red, Samoa Joe went over to Ultimate Pro Wrestling, a WWE affiliate wrestling company where the developmental talent would be used as enhancement talent for undercard matches on WWE Jakked and WWE Metal. Joe later became the longest-reigning world champion of the company's history and even feuded with John Cena, as they were two of the biggest stars in the company.
WWE officials obviously loved Cena and signed him, while they were low on Joe, with Bruce Pritchard and Jim Ross even saying that Joe didn't have a future in pro wrestling, one of the biggest misses the two ever made.
9 Building Ring Of Honor
WWE's disinterest in Samoa Joe was Ring Of Honor's gain, as they signed Joe in 2002. Joe quickly rose up the ranks of the company, and by May of 2003, Joe won the ROH World Championship against The Zebra Kid. To this day, Joe's world title reign is the longest world championship reign in the company's here at 645 days.
Joe's title reign is beloved so much due to its length as well as the matches he had while being champion. Joe clashed with the likes of Bryan Danielson, Nigel McGuinness, and a very important trilogy with CM Punk, and became a face of the ROH product.
8 Trilogy Against CM Punk
Samoa Joe versus CM Punk is one of the greatest rivalries in Ring of Honor history. The Trilogy earned ROH's first-ever five-star match by Dave Meltzer and the first five-star rating from Meltzer from an American promotion in years. It still remains as one of the best trilogy that a company has had in the past two decades.
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Samoa Joe versus CM Punk really helped lay the groundwork for what really Ring Of Honor was doing, and brought a lot of eyes to the company. The two legends would put on an iconic two one-hour draws for the first two matches in the trilogy before Joe ultimately defeated Punk, giving the iconic trio of matches a definitive ending.
7 Entering TNA
Joe was treated as a major player from the moment he debuted in TNA in 2005. He became a unique competitor in the X Division due to his size, but proved he was as good as anyone in the division. Joe, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels would have iconic matches, with their best being the triple threat match at Unbreakable 2005.
Despite losing that match, Joe would not lose in a singles match for 18 months, having one of the most impressive winning streaks in wrestling. Styles is known as the biggest builder of TNA and for good reason. However, Impact Wrestling and the history it has would not be the same without Samoa Joe's contributions.
6 Feud with Kurt Angle & TNA Champion
TNA put their trust in Joe when they made their biggest signing to date, putting him in a program with the debuting Kurt Angle. Acquiring Angle was a major deal for TNA, and picking Joe to be his first feud was the perfect choice as the two would go on to have some of the best matches in the company's history with Angle giving Joe his first loss at Genesis 2006.
Joe and Angle would continue their feud on and off all the way into Lockdown 2008 where Joe finally won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, defeating Angle. Joe would lose the title to Sting at Bound For Glory IV, ending his title reign at one day away from six months.
5 Main Event Mafia/Nation of Violence
In 2009, Samoa Joe introduced his "nation of violence" character, establishing less of an importance on winning and instead choosing disqualifications to continue beating up his opponents. Joe sported tribal face paint and even threaten his opponents with a knife he carried around.
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After feuding against the group, Joe helped Kurt Angle win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, and joined The Main Event Mafia, establishing himself as one of the biggest heels in the company. The Main Event Mafia was one of the biggest stables in TNA history, containing strictly wrestling legends such as Angle, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, Taz, and Joe joined the group as the younger member of the stable. Joe would later be part of the second iteration of the group that contained Sting, Angle, Magnus, Rampage Jackson and himself.
4 Joining NXT
When Joe left IMPACT Wrestling, it was a major loss for the company that had previously lost many of their long time members such as AJ Styles. The wrestling world waited to see if Joe would go back to ROH (which he did for a short time), sign with New Japan, or do what Styles did and sign with WWE.
At NXT Takeover: Unstoppable Joe debuted saving Sami Zayn from Kevin Owens. Joe quickly dominated in NXT, teaming with Finn Balor and winning the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic before turning on him and feuding with Balor for the NXT Championship.
3 NXT Championships
NXT made a bold and unique choice after Finn Balor retained his NXT Championship due to Joe sustaining a cut that wouldn't stop bleeding. Just three weeks later, Joe would defeat Balor at a live event, earning him his first NXT Championship. It was the right choice as Joe would have great matches against Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura in first title reign.
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It wouldn't be his only NXT Championship as Joe and Nakamura would trade championship victories against each other to give Joe his second reign. Joe's final reign was in 2021, but he had to relinuqsh the title due to testing positive for COVID-19.
2 Main Roster Run
At the beginning of 2017 Joe would finally come up to the main roster, quickly feuding with some of the top stars such as Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Finn Balor, etc. At Extreme Rules 2017, Joe defeated Rollins, Reigns, Balor, and Wyatt in a classic match to become number one contender to Brock Lesnar's Universal Championship. Joe had quite a memorable feud with Lesnar, probably being the best program he was in on the main roster, but ultimately did not win the Universal Championship.
Joe would win the United States Championship twice, have a memorable feud against AJ Styles. Joe did commentary on Monday Night RAW while recovering from an injury. Eventually he moved back to NXT to win his third and final NXT Championship before being released by the company in January 2022.
1 AEW Debut & Ring Of Honor Return
After Joe's release from WWE, there was no hotter free agent in the world than the "samoan submission machine". Joe turned up at Ring Of Honor's return show, Supercard of Honor, saving ROH Champion Johanthan Gresham from a newly turned heel Jay Lethal.
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AEW owner Tony Khan was quick to announce that Joe was now signed to both AEW and ROH, and Joe stated that he was going after everyone, and all the titles. Since then, Joe has debuted in AEW and is currently a part of the Owen Hart Cup Tournament and is in a feud against Jay Lethal, Sonjay Dutt, and Satnam Singh.
