Samoa Joe Reveals AEW Forced WWE To Move Away From Recruiting Indy Wrestlers

Samoa Joe is ‘All Elite’ following his shock return to the AEW owned Ring of Honor during Supercard of Honor on April 1.

This was Joe’s first major appearance since his second WWE release in January 2022, where the ‘Samoan Submission Machine’ was working as part of WWE’s scouting network alongside William Regal. During the Supercard of Honor post-show media scrum, Joe spoke of his previous role, suggesting WWE changed their hiring practices due to AEW:

“You also have to understand the major shift was mainly because many of the better independent wrestlers are working for AEW,” Joe said. “So I mean, let’s just be honest here, when we were tapping into a market and looking for new athletes when I was with WWE at the time, when the markets tapped, you try to find a new market. That really was probably a lot of the appetence why they chose to switch directions so if there’s not a lot of gold in the well, you start digging somewhere else.”

Indeed, WWE are now concentrating on signing athletes from outside of the wrestling industry and moulding them into WWE Superstars through the NIL programme, rather than taking the best-of-the-best from the independent scene.

H/T: Wrestling Inc.