Samoa Joe recently appeared as a guest on the wildly popular INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the pro wrestling legend spoke about not being part of a Samoan wrestling family, the origins of his ring name, the infamous MJF push from his WWE NXT days, the Brock Lesnar promo, when he will retire and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
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 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 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 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.”
On if 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.”
