WWE Releases Samoa Joe, Former NXT Champion Issues Statement

Forum 2 years ago

WWE Releases Samoa Joe, Former NXT Champion Issues Statement

Just a day after the WWE releases of many key NXT personnel including William Regal, Road Dogg, and others, the professional wrestling organization has released former NXT Champion Samoa Joe.

This is the second time that WWE releases have included Samoa Joe, who was cut on April 15, 2021, before returning to the company in June 2021. After not having wrestled since 2020, Joe surprisingly returned to action and won the NXT Championship for the third time by defeating Karrion Kross. Despite the win, Joe wound up vacating the belt just weeks later due to an injury that ended his WWE career on the sidelines.

“Extremely fortunate and grateful to all the young & amazing talent I had the pleasure of working with in the past months,” said Samoa Joe through his Twitter account about the WWE release. “Only saddened at the loss of an ‘excuse’ to see their continued growth & achievement. I am very excited for [their] future … and mine.”

Besides winning the NXT Championship three times, Joe was also a formr WWE United States Champion and won the 2015 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. The wrestling star also had a memorable feud with Brock Lesnar. Prior to signing with WWE in 2015, Joe had a memorable career elsewhere being a mainstay star for Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor.