Samoa Joe Reveals How Quickly Triple H Brought Him Back to WWE NXT

Samoa Joe was one of the 10 wrestlers WWE released back on April 15, but exactly two months later the “Samoan Submission Machine” arrived on NXT as a new enforcer for general manager William Regal. It turns out, as Joe confirmed while on the Out of Character Podcast this week, that the time between him being told he was going to be fired to Triple H calling him about getting him back on the Black & Gold Brand was only a few hours.

“[John Laurinaitis] called me, and I thought it was a rare call from Johnny. ‘Hey, what’s up, Johnny? How you doing?’ He told me, ‘Hey, listen. We’re going to have to release you from your contract.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ You know, like ‘… cool.’ And ‘Joe, we think the world of you, we’d love to work with you again.’ I was like, ‘All right. No, absolutely, Johnny.’ And, honestly, I did have a bit of an understanding,” Joe said (h/t FOX Sports)

“Obviously, at the time, dealing with injuries, coming back, getting ready to get my rehabilitation going and all that stuff, we’re in a pandemic, all this other stuff, so I got it,” he continued. “It wasn’t unexpected. But at the same time, I was relatively calm about it. I’ve kinda been in this situation before. A younger me probably would’ve been really, really freaked out. But at this point, you just roll pivot. That’s really all there is to it when it comes to life in general. That’s kind of the mantra I’ve kept. So at that point, I think I was already kind of in the works on setting up the next framework for whatever else I was gonna do. A few hours later, I get a call from Hunter, and that all pretty much kinda changed.”

Joe had spent the previous year working as a color commentator for Monday Night Raw after reportedly suffering an injury during a Raw commercial filming in February 2020. He confirmed with Satin that he’s still trying to get cleared to return to action (on television he’s not considered to wrestle and can’t to fight anyone unless provoked) and is helping with WWE’s talent scouting department.