Samoa Joe looks back on one of his most famous matches with CM Punk.
The King of Television faced the Second City Saint in Ring of Honor back in 2004, a matchup that had the ROH World Title on the line and was the first of what would become an iconic trilogy. He spoke about the matchup during a recent interview with WrestleZone, where he also mentions how vital it was for ROH to have a good showing in the market otherwise they could have crumbled.
You can check out his full thoughts on the showdown below.
Says the 60-minute draw was not something that was meticulously planned out, but happened more in the moment:
I think there’s a lot of things that stand out. I think something that’s kind of relevant to today and maybe put some people’s mind at ease in our industry. A lot of that came together, hours before. This is something that was not this overthought think-piece, that was done out over several days. We were forced into a situation. I believe [Steve] Corino was stuck in Japan or it was something of that ilk where he had two commitments and couldn’t just make it back in time. And Dayton was a new market, I think I believe at that time, too. We needed to have a strong showing.
How regardless of the outcome ROH needed to have a good showing in the market:
Every time ROH came into a new market, we had to have a strong showing. There was no choice. If we didn’t, we were dead in that area. A hit like that at a company at that time in its infancy would have been devastating, to invest the money, to go out there and have it be like a failed venture. So, we had to deliver every time we went into a new area and keep fans coming back. So, talking with Gabe [Sapolsky] and Punk at the time just it seemed like a crazy idea. I may have been a little bit inebriated when I agreed to it. but when I woke up in the morning, I kind of wrapped my head around it and said, ‘All right, let’s go.’
Samoa Joe is the current reigning ROH Television Champion, and will most likely be defending the title against Mark Briscoe at the March 31st Supercard of Honor pay-per-per-view event.