Samoa Joe Knew The "Writing Was On The Wall" For Him In WWE

After seven years away from the promotion, Samoa Joe returned to Ring Of Honor at Friday's Supercard Of Honor event and The Samoan Submission Machine chased off Jay Lethal, allowing Jonathan Gresham and Lee Moriarty to end the night standing tall.

Prior to his return, Joe was in his second stint with WWE working as a talent scout for the company's developmental system. He was let go in January of 2022 along with William Regal and other developmental staff as WWE continued to move away from Triple H's vision of NXT.

Speaking about his WWE release during the post-Supercard Of Honor media scrum, Joe admitted he knew "the writing was on the wall" for him in the company.

"My going back to WWE was majorly because of the people I worked with and relationships I built in the company, mainly two people in Triple H and William Regal. As Triple H, dealing with his situation which I obviously knew about and was way more concerned about than my employment, Regal and his departure, I knew the writing was on the wall for me. Which is fine, we were a big collective team and a big collective think tank within the company and we went a different way," Joe said.

"As far as the release, it's an up and down process for a lot of people, for me it's freed me up to pursue a lot of projects that I've wanted to work on. It freed me up to start talking with Tony and the future with what he wanted to do and I was very surprised that it matched up."

Joe also discussed WWE's decision to move away from recruiting independent wrestlers and the three-time NXT Champion noted All Elite Wrestling forced Vince McMahon's company to do so as many of the top talent were joining Tony Khan's promotion.

H/T to Wrestling Inc.