When Joe left TNA earlier this year, his options were immediately wide open. The door was open for a return to Ring of Honor, so he went back and has worked several dates with the promotion, but it’s not expected to be a full-time or long-term deal. Without a TNA contract Joe became the hottest free agent on the market, and with the exception of WWE it’s likely he could have walked into any promotion in the world and picked up at least a few dates, if not an official gig with the bigger fish like New Japan Pro Wrestling.
WWE has always been the unknown variable. At 35-years-old Joe isn’t the young talent they’re looking to build the company around for the next 10-15 years, as is the case with some of the younger NXT guys. But Finn Balor was 33 when he signed with NXT. Sami Zayn was 30, Kevin Owens was 30 and Hideo Itami is 34; all guys that are expected to have successful runs once they hit the main roster.
Here’s the difference — Joe is perhaps more primed for a main roster debut than any of the others were, or currently are. While all the names above had great careers in Japan or the US indie scene, almost all of them have talked about how much there is to learn in NXT from a production standpoint. And there is a surprising amount, from the differences and subtleties of WWE-style entrances, playing to the different cameras, the “WWE style” of a wrestling match, etc. But Joe has a decade of experience on television, and TNA (albeit with a much lower budget) tries their hardest with Impact Wrestling to emulate the way WWE does TV.
Time will tell what happens with Samoa Joe and WWE, if anything at all. But with how packed the top of the card is in NXT right now, given his age and given how many offers he likely has on the table, it would be a large waste of time and resources to keep the “Samoan Submission Machine” in developmental.
