REPORT: WWE releases Samoa Joe

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2022/01/06/report-wwe-releases-samoa-joe/

Samoa Joe is no longer with WWE, per report.

Coming out of WrestleMania 37, WWE made a series of cuts to their talent roster and one of the names on that list was Samoa Joe. Joe was brought back to WWE two months later to be an on-screen character for the NXT program.

Today, it was reported by Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp that Joe has been released from WWE again.

Joe returned to in-ring competition in August 2021 and defeated Karrion Kross for the NXT Championship at TakeOver 36. As the NXT 2.0 rebrand went into effect, Joe announced that he was relinquishing the NXT Title “due to certain injuries”.

In the months following that announcement, Joe worked as a talent scout for WWE and was present for tryouts that the company held.

Joe is 42 years of age and prior to the TakeOver 36 match, the last time he competed in a sanctioned match was February 2020.

What a waste.

He was obviously cleared to work again to become NXT champion that last time around. Whether or not the injury that lead him to giving up the Championship for the 2.0 launch was legit - you have to believe that it wasn’t seen as a career ender.

Anyways, if he wants to keep wrestling - there are several obvious options. Even if AEW is not an option, Impact and ROH (upon relaunch) would both view him as an important legacy talent.

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It’s beyond obvious now that HHH will never inherit the company and WWE will get sold under Vince. The guy has zero power right now and moving forward.

It’s funny that the guy played and won political games against other wrestlers for years and lost the ultimate political game to Nick Khan.

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I really don’t understand why WWE keeps doing “rounds” when it comes to these cuts. From a PR standpoint, they could not be doing worse of a job handling it.

If they just did one massive release a few months back, sure people would loose their shit that one day, but then it would be over when the next big story hit. The way they are handling this, it never leaves the news cycle. Then when you factor in the mental torture for the employees/contractors having to worry non stop about being cut, its just a shitty way to manage this.

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I’m not sure it would be any better

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Oh I completely agree. There’s sentiment online that once HHH takes over everything will be wonderful.

I don’t see him ever taking over and even if he did, he had a chance with NXT and couldn’t beat a start up. Even without competition all he ever did was take his pick from anyone on the indies.

He developed so few male stars and is the most overrated “promoter” possibly ever. Anyone could have done what he did with NXT. Took no skill or vision

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Yeah

Some fans seem to think WWE dysfunction is all due to Vince but I think it’s way too deeply ingrained at this point. You’d get the same weirdness even without Vince unless they completely gutted the organization.

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