Untapped: A Bummed Fan Tries to Come to Grips With Samoa Joe Leaving TNA

The Response Corner

So, last week I made the mistake of assuming that at least some of the people who constantly gripe about “Super Cena” and how ridiculous his booking is might have been with me in disliking the booking (not the match itself) where one team beat six teams. I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Told I was “overthinking” it by many readers, these people then went on to provide a multi-paragraph list as to why one team beating six is actually okay. But I was overthinking it. At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s cool to have one team beat six. Others do, and hey, that’s your choice. And while I agreed that the Usos/Bryan and Reigns match was awesome, I don’t think it made the Usos look good, since the team they took the limit for 30 minutes was then able to take out two more teams in five minutes. Again, your mileage may vary on that, too.

But while I’m many things, I try my very best to not be a hypocrite, and that’s why I’m just fine with everyone not agreeing with me. At the same time, try to remember that I’m just another shlub that happens to have a column. There’s no authority here, and I don’t think I’m better than anyone. There sometimes feels like there’s a big inferiority complex from readers towards the writers, and I just want to clear it up right now that that doesn’t exist here. Everyone’s opinion matters.

This week, news broke out that Samoa Joe, after nearly ten years with TNA, had left the company. Whether he quit, refused to re-sign, or was fired really doesn’t concern me. The final result is that Samoa Joe is no longer with TNA, and that bums me out. As you can see in that video above, when Joe first arrived to TNA, the hype surrounding him was huge. He had dominated in a run with Ring of Honor, having classics with everyone from Punk, to Aries, to even Kobashi, and made his name as an agile big man with strong strikes, excellent grappling, and some aerial moves that made you do a double take at your screen.

I was immediately a fan, ready to see this new-era wrestler take over the scene with his hybrid skills that hadn’t really been witnessed by a large scale American audience. In some ways, it reminded me of when Booker T began his singles push in late 1997 WCW. Booker was also a hybrid, able to brawl, take to the air, and use his athleticism to entertain the crowds. No, I’m not saying that Samoa Joe and Booker T are the same, I’m saying that the way they seemed poised to take over at certain points in their careers seem similar to me.

And at the start, it seemed like TNA knew exactly what they had. He was placed in matches with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, basically guaranteeing that he would have some amazing outings. He would eventually become the TNA X Division champion, and it only seemed like a matter of time before he was going to become TNA World Champion.

Joe, however, would be one of the bigger victims of the WWE Free Agents, however, as he was used as Kurt Angle’s first feud when Angle showed up. Obviously, Joe/Angle was going to be hugely entertaining, but putting Angle in there with Joe immediately, and having Joe lose, sent a clear signal to some of us fans – Joe wasn’t quite “there” yet. When Booker T arrived in late 2007, it seemed like Joe was going to again have to step to the side and let another “proven” talent take most of the spotlight. Lucky for us, things changed a bit, and at Lockdown 2008, we got what I consider to be one of the best TNA matches to date.

The build to the match had been perfect, with both referencing their late 2006 / early 2007 feud, while also giving the whole match a distinct MMA feel to it with great training videos, and then delivering with a match that almost felt like an MMA bout, complete with Angle wearing loose shorts instead of his singlet, and ankle wraps instead of boots. For nearly a half hour, the two went back and forth, until Joe finally hit the Muscle Buster and got the win. Joe’s time, it seemed, was finally here. Little did we know that his high would actually be the start of the tumble down the mountain.

You see, while he was champion, Joe started hanging out with Kevin Nash for some unknown reason. This led to his Bound For Glory 2008 title defense against Sting, where Nash would super duper shockingly turn on Joe, hitting him in the back with a bat, allowing Sting to win the TNA Title at the third straight Bound For Glory event. From what I recall, absolutely nobody was surprised.

Joe would then form the Frontline to take on Sting’s Main Event Mafia, a group that really accomplished nothing. Then he had his weird turn with the “Nation of Violence” that saw him kidnapping people, losing almost all of his matches by disqualification, and even busting out gigantic knives to threaten his victims. It was clear that TNA had no idea how to keep Joe strong and relevant, but without a championship belt. That was further shown at Slammiversary 2009 where he helped Kurt Angle win the TNA title in a King of the Mountain match, and joined the Main Event Mafia shortly thereafter.

In theory, the turn could have worked. It freshened Joe up, gave him direction, and all that jazz. Unfortunately, he was now in a stable with Kurt Angle, Sting, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner, and Booker T, and was hardly going to be positioned as the top guy. Instead, he was simply a lackey. And really, Joe just never recovered from this horrific period, as the rest of his time in TNA was spent taking small breaks, returning, declaring that he was “back” and ready to take over, maybe grabbing a quick X title reign, and then not doing much else.

Sure, that’s a pretty quick way to wrap up nearly 6 years of time, but that was how he was treated. Joe was never positioned as a top guy again, only as a tough guy. It seemed that his feud with Low Ki for the X Title as 2014 closed might be a good way to get him back to the top level, but he instead joined up with MVP, Kenny King, and Low Ki to form the Beat Down Clan, again making sure that Joe was just another face in a group instead of standing out on his own.

To be fair, this isn’t all TNA’s fault, and it shouldn’t be placed squarely on their shoulders. Through the years, Joe appeared to lose motivation. He’d put on some weight, and appear to not really care. Sure, that could have been a symptom of his booking, but at the same time, we’re to be professional, right? You sign on for a job, you do the job, no matter what. Maybe he was just as angry as we were that he wasn’t made an unstoppable World Champion, but we’re the ones that are supposed to throw stupid tantrums over something as important as pro wrestling, not him. If you show your employers that you aren’t giving it your all at all times, you shouldn’t expect to be treated like an all-star.

Still, the whole thing is just sad. In the end, Joe’s run feels like a waste of nearly 10 years. The man we expected to take TNA into the future was simply used as a stepping stone for nearly everyone else that they wanted to push. It was like TNA knew that they could just say “Samoa Joe” and we’d come running, excited to see our guy, hoping that this would be the actual time where he took over and dominated. Instead, he was used to put someone over. Even something as simple as his tag team with Magnus – a thrown together team featuring two guys who had absolutely nothing better to do, and who amazingly got crazy over with the fans- was given a brief vanity title reign and then promptly broken up, because God forbid we get invested in anything Joe’s doing.

A six month TNA title reign for Samoa Joe’s entire tenure seems criminal to me. AJ Styles basically held the TNA title every other week, but we couldn’t get Joe a more substantive title reign? We couldn’t get him more than one title reign?

What bums me out is my opinion that Joe is probably done on the major American wrestling scene. I don’t see him making it to WWE (Raw/Smackdown) TV. He might get a chance in NXT, and that’s hardly the worst thing, but I don’t see him settling for that. Maybe he’ll try to make a splash in Lucha Underground like Alberto El Patrón is currently doing, but even that seems like a big longshot.

That promo, to me, is everything that Joe should have been. He should have been the voice of the new wave of talent. Instead, he was simply used as another guy to make others look amazing.

Ten years ago, Joe’s arrival to TNA seemed to signal the start of something great. Like we were going to get to watch this amazing Indy talent finally meet his potential and change what pro wrestling is. Instead, he becomes another tale of potential not completely realized. Joe didn’t suck. Joe wasn’t garbage. I am still a huge fan of Joe, and I will absolutely try to follow him to wherever he ends up next. But this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go, and that’s what bums me out the most. He deserved better.

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