Samoa Joe says he nearly retired prior to signing with AEW.
The newly crowned TNT Champion and current reigning ROH Television Champion spoke about coming back from multiple injuries during his recent interview on The Sessions with host Renee Paquette. Joe explains how suffering back-to-back concussions actually had him scared to continue wrestling, but it also helped him focus on getting healthy.
Says he thought about retiring before signing with AEW:
I was legitimately thinking about hanging it up for health reasons. Still coming off the concussion and still dealing with the very end effects of that and getting back in the ring healthy and transitioning back to a physical state where it’s like I can do something for a good period of time and not want to pass out.
Says he caught two concussions very close together, which actually helped him focus on getting healthy:
I basically caught two concussions very close together, which is terrible. To that point, I did take a year off to do commentary, which helped me tremendously and I do not regret taking that time. I wouldn’t change it for anything. That allowed me to get healthy and get my mind back together and get back into a place where I felt confident even doing anything physical. I realize that if I were to rush that and done that, I probably, inevitably, would not have returned to the ring at all. I am happy I handled that well, despite wanting to get after it.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
