Samoa Joe is currently embroiled in a personal feud with former WWE World Champion Seth Rollins, after being unveiled as Triple H’s Destroyer earlier this year.
Even though Samoa Joe was a standout star in NXT and his feud with Finn Balor was one of the highlights of last year, it seems that Joe was actually told that he shouldn’t get his hopes up about a main roster call-up before WWE even saw him wrestle as part of NXT.
It has already been reported that Vince McMahon wasn’t hot on Joe before he was signed by WWE and it seems that WWE executives followed his lead and told Joe that he shouldn’t expect a career beyond his run in NXT.
He recently appeared alongside Chris Jericho on his Talk Is Jericho podcast, where he talked about his start in WWE (via Wrestling Inc).
He said: “I think the initial idea was, ‘let’s just bring him in for NXT’ and we got such a good response with everything that it kind of really blew up even beyond that and here I am on the main roster and really to the company’s credit, it wasn’t something that was set in stone. Like, the scenario that was laid out before me was like, ‘listen, we can use you here in NXT, but we don’t really think that it’ll go much beyond that.'”
“I really wasn’t worried. It was kind of a foot-in-the-door deal and I had a lot of good people rooting for me at the time.”
Joe had already made a name for himself outside of WWE before the company stepped in, but obviously WWE see talent much differently than other companies, but thankfully it seems that Joe was able to change their mind.
