Samoa Joe made an appearance on AEW Unrestrictedto discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, he gave his thoughts on the “Forbidden Door,” which was created by AEW President Tony Khan where wrestlers from other promotions show up as a surprise in other companies. AEW started this through their working relationships with various promotions including ROH, Impact Wrestling, NJPW, and more.
“Maybe my definition of forbidden door and yours is different, but mine was always WWE, who, that door is still not open. If you’re talking about co-promoting with like New Japan and other promotions and Ring of Honor, that’s fine. But to me, that’s never been considered a forbidden door. I co-promoted with Ring of Honor and New Japan years ago. It didn’t turn out well. It wasn’t a good collaboration. From that experience, that’s what I base my experiences on.”
“Even to this day, when you’re talking about the forbidden door, I’m talking about it from the standpoint of where I’m at and where the people are at. The door that’s currently up is what adds value to a lot of the wrestlers. To me, even though I’ve dealt with Tony and I have a very different feeling now that I’m dealing personally with Tony, and talking business about how he handles himself and what his vision is, which is very noble and I’m surprised to hear but, when the promoters start working together, does that usually work out for the wrestlers? Like I’m just talking about from a labor standpoint.”
“I know this may blow up the narrative, but like, that’s how I understood it. I’m not on the internet every day catching on all the buzzwords and getting with the revolution and stuff. I think the arguing between the AEW and the WWE fans is ridiculous. Watch pro wrestling. You don’t need to dunk on this. It’s you taking your ego, and taking something you have nothing involved with, and trying to start a conflict. I mean, watch what you watch, enjoy what you want to enjoy, but hey, I’m always going to be pro value for wrestlers, no matter what.”
“Wrestlers should be getting the top dollar and getting paid the most you should possibly be paid, and be valued at the highest level. I will never apologize for that opinion, and I will never go back on that opinion. If guys take that as some shot like, ‘Oh, well now you’re here and now you sold out’, no, my opinion is still the same.”
“As far as I see it, that door is still up. But there’s benefits to that door being up and there’s the benefits of that door being open. The door can be opened, but there’s got to be a lot of change industry wide before I’d be comfortable with it as a performer, and from where I’m standing as an entertainer who’s been in this business, who has actually dealt with the financials, and knows what this business is about. I mean, I know you have your glorified view of what this war is. You think we line up on each side, but the real war is us trying to entertain you people, not this ridiculousness between y’all.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
