Samoa Joe's Incredible Career In TNA, AEW & WWE, Brock Lesnar, MJF Shove, "NOPE"

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Samoa Joe (@SamoaJoe) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss his careers in ROH, TNA, WWE and now AEW, working with the likes of Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar, the origin of the "nope" spot, the Muscle Buster that ended Tyson Kidd's career, shoving MJF in NXT and the full-circle moment that happened in AEW, having to fill for time as WrestleMania 37 was delayed due to rain, playing the role of Sweet Tooth in "Twisted Metal", his various voice acting roles and more!

Quote I'm thinking about: "Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." – C.S. Lewis

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On not being part of a Samoan wrestling family:

“I think Toa Liona is out there on an island by himself too. But other than that, I mean, there’s a few, but it became a funny thing because when I came up in the indies, a lot of Samoan guys who were around would kind of claim lineage to the, ‘Oh yeah dude, I’m Rock’s cousin. I’m this and that.’ And to me I was always like, I don’t want to be living off a family name that isn’t mine and doing that. So I was always real meticulous. No, I’m not an Anoa’i, but they’re an awesome family and they paved the way. But, yeah I was really kind of adamant I was gonna make my own name.”

On deciding on the name Samoa Joe:

“It was more of an exercise of necessity. So when I started, the internet wasn’t what it was today. I mean, people were still on AOL Instant Messenger getting bookings and you printed out your directions, there was no GPS, so getting your name out there was a difficult process. There was no Twitter, it was message boards and those message boards only really spoke to 20 people who were on that website or whatever. So getting this kind of exposure that many athletes are able to get today just was not a thing. Most of the time, when you got booked it was word of mouth. Somebody would recommend you. ‘This kid’s great’, they’re gonna bring them in. That was very much the case with me where a lot of, especially California promoters, they didn’t care about your tape. They didn’t care about whoever, they cared about the word of Christopher Daniels, they cared about the word of a “Shooter” Tony Jones up in AP. At the time they were the prominent guys, their word kind of got you in. So I started out as Samoa Joe just a joke gimmick like, oh we’ll just call him Samoa Joe and it’s like, you can play the stereotypical character, but you’re really a killer and you hate. The problem was I started having good matches early, people started enjoying it and promoters started asking, ‘I want that Samoa Joe kid on my show.’ I wasn’t going to change my name because I didn’t want to lose the booking. It was like, I don’t want to come up and be like Johnny Thundercock the next day, ‘Oh no, I want Samoa Joe. What’s going on here?’ So it was just a business decision. It really wasn’t like I wanted to be Samoa Joe or I sat at home coming up with this character like this is gonna be the guy. It was like, I wanted to stay employed.”

On his love of martial arts:

“I love martial arts, and to this day I still practice and still train and it was something I enjoyed. I love studying the art of it and understanding the concepts behind it. I just took stuff that I enjoyed and I tried to integrate it into my work. At the time Lucha Libre was so big, and then the aerial high flying, especially in Southern California with the border being right down the street, the influence was all over here. So it’s like I needed something to differentiate myself. So MMA was kind of coming into its own, especially here in Southern California. I knew a lot of the guys, so I just started saying to myself well how about I start taking some of those things and bring them over to kind of this genre, because I feel in 10 years this will be the biggest thing in combat sports, and I was right about that. I hope some of that stuff translates.”

On potentially pursuing UFC:

“It was open to me, but probably not. I’m an entertainer by trade, I understand how people view me as a wrestler and my style and stuff, but at my heart I grew up in show business and I’m about entertaining people, and that really was my goal with this was not to be a badass, but to go out there and make people happy and having a good night at the wrestling show.”

On people being intimidated by him:

“Which I never understood, because I try to be pretty chill and cool. I remember AJ, the great thing about him is that everywhere I’ve been, you’re going to see AJ, you’re going to see Chris Daniels. You’re going to see the same people over and over again, because they’re getting booked there too. We used to go to places and AJ would be like, ‘freaking guys intimidated or something’. I’ll be like, Why? He’s like, ‘I don’t know he thinks you’re a killer, you’re gonna kill him or something. I told him you’re fine.’ And I’m like, alright, cool. Then we get in the ring, gonna be fine. But a lot of times too it became this weird thing where guys would book me as a rite of passage. They’re like, ‘They’ve come up to you man, I saw you with Kobashi, and tonight that’s what I’m feeling is going to be tonight.’ I would roll my eyes, but AJ, you’d hear him in the back locker room just laughing. Don’t let him tell you different. He was horrible. I’d be like, I give the guy my best, but it would be funny, because I get in there with independent wrestlers, and they’d be swinging for the fences on me, and then I get upset, and then I ended up swinging the fence back. Then AJ is no help, because he’s like, ‘You see him killing him out there? Yeah, that’s why you don’t…’ I’m like, shut up AJ, so yeah, it became a weird thing for a while. But you know, what can you do? It’s a wrestling business.” 

On what going to TNA meant to his career:

“To be honest, not a tremendous amount when it started. I had some less-than-good interactions with TNA early on. At the time I was ROH Champion. I was very, very focused on ROH and building the company. To their credit I was making a tremendous living at the time, especially for an independent guy working with ROH. They always took great care of me, especially when Cary [Silkin] took over. If you did good in video sales, he had no problem cracking a little cash bonus off, secret to the side. I thank him very much for that. But yeah, when I got the call for TNA, TNA didn’t have any TV. They had lost the weekly pay-per-views. People kind of forget about this. Was a transitional period. They lost the weekly pay per views. I think Dixie was just about to get involved, she hadn’t yet. They had called me up and before they had offered me a gig, they said, ‘Hey, can you come out and have a tryout match?’ I said, Sure, just send me the ticket and whatever the pay is. Then they called back and said, ‘Oh we don’t fly people out and there will be no pay.’ I called back and said, ‘Well, I’m not interested, thanks.’ And I hung up. Then they called me back again. They wanted me to be a bodyguard, I think for Johnny Fairplay and they wanted to call me Reality Joe. I said no, and that was the end of that. Then the third time they had lost their TV, they were only doing internet showcase shows. I get a call they said, ‘Hey, we’d like to you bring in. We’re gonna fly in, we’re gonna pay all this stuff.’ I was like, hey, it’s a good start. Alright, we’re really talking here. [They said] ‘We want to give you a look. We’re kind of in between TV deals’, stuff like that, so I just kind of considered it a booking. I didn’t really think it was going to be a long-term thing. Went there, had the match. They loved it, called me back and they wanted to hire me full-time. I didn’t want to be there full-time because they didn’t have a TV deal. I remember Terry Taylor at the time, who I love now and we have a great relationship, was really pressuring me, sign this deal, sign this deal, sign this deal. I’m not going to sign this deal, I’m working for ROH and I’m not going to be exclusive to you for whatever this is and give up that money. It’s crazy. They couldn’t believe that. ‘Well, we’re a big company, we had TV.’ I’m like, you had TV? Okay, great! It was really a weird process. Then my agent at the time got wind that a TV deal was forthcoming and he just goes, Hey, we’re just gonna wait it out until they get TV. And we did. And then when we got TV I said, I’ll take that contract now, it worked out a lot better.”

On working with Kurt Angle:

“I think they were great. Kurt’s status at the time, and who he was in the wrestling industry. I mean, in a lot of ways, I give Kurt a lot of credit because it legitimized me in front of a lot of people, because you hang with Kurt Angle and you go out there and you get down with him, then in many fans’ eyes you’re the truth, you’re the real deal. So, yeah, I mean, that definitely was the byproduct of working with Kurt.”

On the Brock Lesnar promo:

“Yeah, Brock was surprised too. [He didn’t know?] No, I mean, well a lot of that too and I’m not sure, there’s a lot of promos I had with Brock. But Brock really liked the kind of chaotic energy, I brought things and he loved that. I would say whatever I wanted to say to him and to his face because he understood what I’m trying to do, he understood. You want to flip off Brock Lesnar to his face and have people go, what are you doing, dude? That uneasiness, that kind of tension in the air. I think that also is just an important part of bringing interest and care into matches is building that tension, just knowing that when the dam finally breaks all hell’s gonna break loose.”

On the “You look at me when I’m talking to you” line:

“Yeah, I may have in the grand creative scheme of things went a little overboard there. It was fine. But I just remember when I walked back through the curtain, Hunter is like, Oh, awesome. Everybody’s stoked. And I remember I just looked over at Vince, and he’s just like, [flatly] ‘Yeah, good job.’ Because I think he wanted a different look to how everybody was in the ring. But sometimes when I’m out there, I’m on the mic and you get me jazzed up, and I’m all my sh*t, I just flow with the character, and then it gets wild.” 

On if he had to prove himself in WWE as a non-WWE guy:

“No, they were respectful of me. Listen, I think Vince understood who I was and what I brought to the show. If anything though, and I understand this, you want your own creations to do the best. You want your own things that you’ve invested time, money and effort into to kind of go to the forefront. I’ve never faulted anybody for that. But at the same time, I’m never going to be less so somebody else could be more. I’m going to be the most me I can be. If you compete with me, and you’re up there with me, you’re going to look great. If you stay up here, this watermark with me, you’re going to look fantastic. But if you don’t, I’m not going not gonna slow my game up just to make the segment work.” 

On his TNA Mount Rushmore:

“I think, AJ, Kurt, I put Abyss on there. A lot of people don’t realize the amount of physical punishment and hurt and pain and effort that Abyss put into a lot of the matches to make them happen, I think he’s one of those underrated guys in the TNA lore, really, really is. And Jeff, I mean, he started the whole deal and got it all rolling, and was a big, integral part of it for a long time. So, I mean, those are the guys that I have up there.”

On the MJF push segment in NXT:

“I remember just the whole segment coming together. What had really happened is we had done a couple runs of the common entering the arena shot, and I kept going I’m bored of the shot because, it’s just so walking to the deal. Then as a joke, I said, and I didn’t tell MJF the time because I was kind of just doing as a gag. I go, ‘Hey man, when I’m coming out now just really be clearing out the hallways for me.’ ‘Yeah, sure, bro, no problem.’ I come out and I shoved him and we cut whatever there. I remember I looked up and everybody was dying behind the camera. And I looked at him, and he was like giggling too. I think it ended up going to the truck Hunter was in the truck, kind of doing pre-production for the show and he just goes, Oh God, we’re keeping that.”

On having no idea what MJF would become:

“No, none. Well, I knew all the guys there at the time were, I think they were Brian Myers’ guys, essentially from his school, Create A Pro. I knew he had good dudes so I remember asking are you Brian’s guys, yeah, okay, cool. So I remember when I was doing the bit, the guy would get it, and he did. It was a hilarious thing. I’m glad we got to revisit it.”

On why he signed with AEW:

“I think the biggest thing was at first when I left WWE, I just signed my deal with Twisted Metal, there was initially a little bit of interest again from WWE and maybe redoing it, but at that point, I had started talking with AEW. So speaking with Tony and understanding kind of what he was looking to do at the time, and really being able to work out with my filming schedule, it just was a really nice fit.”

On if he has thought about when his career will end:

“Yeah, I do a lot. It’s probably coming sooner than later, which is fine. I think a lot of people from my generation, from what I’ve seen, if that they have the ability, we’ve done our best to kind of save up and we definitely don’t want to out stay our welcome, because we may have been privy to a few people may have done that in their careers. So I definitely don’t want to be that guy in mind.”

Is there a date in mind?

“No, I think it’s just really based on when my contract runs out. I think exploring those options as they go. I hate just saying retirement, because how many pro wrestling retirements never stick? All of them. So yeah, I will do this for a little longer and then yeah I think the end is probably sooner than any new deal being signed.”

On creating the muscle buster:

“I didn’t. So I was in the 01 Dojo when I started my career in Japan. I remember I was kind of like flipping through, they have all these baseball magazines, all this reading material and a bunch of Manga on the table because a lot of the guys enjoyed reading it. I remember I was flipping through Kinnikuman, and he was doing the muscle buster. And I was like ah. I remember I’d seen it a few times in Mexico and I was like that’s pretty cool I might start using that. Then I think at the time the promoter, Yoshiki Nakamura was with me. He goes, Ah, good move and they gave it to Sylvester Terkay to use. But then when Sylvester left, I got back on the Indies in the States and he wasn’t doing that, I was like I’m gonna start using it. So that’s pretty much how it happened.”

On if he thought he would do the muscle buster again after what happened with Tyson Kidd:

“No, and to this day that probably remains the largest regret in my career that that happened. [Chris: There’s nothing you could have done about it]. But that doesn’t change things for Tyson. Doesn’t change things for a guy who is probably one of the most passionate people in the world of professional wrestling. For a guy who has an amazing mind for it. WWE is fortunate to have him. Because even though he’s not in a physical role within the company, the finishes, his ability to put together matches and be a producer and agent are unparalleled.” 

Did you think anything was wrong?

“No, not at all. No, didn’t feel any different. It’s just when I turned around and went for the pin and got back up, the only thing that even hinted that there’s something wrong is when Cesaro looked back up at me. I know when Cesaro is concerned and then I was like, oh my God, I hope everything is okay. Then we got in the back and he went to hospital and everything got checked out. But I mean, the whole circumstances regarding that and everything, it just makes me sick to this day that that guy is not out there being the Tyson Kidd that I know that he is. He’s an amazing human being. He a great understanding of a greater picture and when you talk about guys who who are great finish men, guys who can produce, he’s going to be heralded as one of the dudes there if he isn’t already.”

On concerns about using the move again:

“Well, I didn’t want to. It was kind of like when I got back into things in NXT. In NXT I used it. When I got to the main roster I didn’t. But it was mainly I tried to avoid doing a bunch or making it a thing. If he’s having a bad day, he looks over and he sees that, I didn’t want to replay the car crash in front of somebody. So I did my best to distance myself from it as much as possible. But that’s why just because this guy’s my co-worker, this guy I respect and I care about. I’m not trying to make him have a sh*tty day over it.”

On how he was paired with Hook:

“I think after we had the match initially, kind of discussed it a bit more and this and that. Then at the time, coming out of the championship program, I like Hook and I like Shibata. I know they’re just two talents that I just wanted to see kind of on TV more and focused on. I knew that I would have to go away pretty soon with Twisted Metal filming. So it was like going back into the championship program probably wasn’t a priority just because of timing and stuff. So I just wanted to focus on trying to really, really help elevate both of them and bring them to the forefront.”

On the origin of the “Nope” spot:

“Well, it started out as a gag, and it was a house show gag where I’d work Christopher Daniels and at some point I would call a cross body or something and I’d walk away from it. And Chris, to his credit, every time I did it, as he’s diving here he’s like, you son of a bitch, you dirty bastard, he would always like cursed little phrase at me as he fell to his doom. So it kind of started out as that, and then I remember I did it to him, and then him and AJ began requesting it on people, like, Oh, you got to get him with the walk away today. Come on, dude, it’ll be hilarious. You got to get him with it. So then it became kind of a bit when I started showing up on TV.” 

On why he did commentary in WWE:

“They still wanted me involved in the company. They still wanted me to be a vocal presence on the show. But I was taking my time with the concussion. I wasn’t just going to come back until I had taken sufficient time and got the brain rest. I had two concussions very, very close together. All the research that was coming out, I just, I’m just not going to gamble with that. Just after seeing the massive effects it’s had on so many people in this industry and across sports period. My brain is not something I’m willing to bargain with.”

On WrestleMania 37 being delayed due to the rain:

“Oh, incredibly [chaotic]. I mean we were laughing the whole time but the biggest thing, which people don’t know, which was really the terrifying thing that was scaring us all was right above the ring. Especially where me and Michael Cole were standing, there was plastic over the thing and there was a big, huge water bubble coming through the plant, right over our head, right over commentary table, right over the first three rows. You could see this big water balloon kind of filling up at the top of the thing and it’s like the whole time we’re doing it there. We had the rain coats on but it wasn’t the rain. It was like if that thing went off, we were going to get waterfalled, it wasn’t even funny. So it was like, alright, well, here we are already and stuff like that. It was just a lot of you are stalling for time, and a lot of not there being dead air, just kind of filling it with whatever until we can get the show started. So yeah, it was an adventure.”

What is Samoa Joe grateful for?

“My family, my mentors in the business and those I have been on this journey with.”