Samoa Joe recently did interviews with Scripps News, Guru Magazine and Slam Wrestling promoting Against All Odds on Sunday and discussed his career, his run with the World Title and more. Check out the highlights:
On his dynamic with Magnus: “There’s definitely a good symbiotic relationship with me and him. He shows up wanting to go 120 miles per hour. He’s got intelligent ideas and he’s ready to go. When you work with someone like that who’s so hungry in wanting to succeed and putting on the best show possible, it’s really refreshing and contagious. It helps my game.”
On TNA’s booking: “At the end of the day, I could groan and take my frustrations out on the world and complain about every little thing that was going wrong with me. But ultimately, I’m responsible for my own fate and destiny. I’m wasting my time complaining instead of doing things on my end to try and fix it. My job as a pro wrestler is to entertain the fans. That should be my primary concern, not trying to justify how things could be better for myself.”
On his matches: “I go back and pick apart 20 million things after my matches looking at things I would change or could have done better. I’m never satisfied with anything. I don’t know if I’ll ever be satisfied enough to say a match was 100 perfect.”
On his career: “I think I’m very much at the midway point of my career. There’s definitely a lot more accolades I would love to achieve. I feel pretty positive about that moving forward and what the future holds. As far as the past few years, there have been rocky points at times. At the same time, I defy anybody to find a wrestling career that was picture-perfect all the way through. It’s a marathon, not a race, and I’m willing to complete it.”
On where TNA will be in five years: “I think five years from now, TNA will still be doing well and thriving, and will have more of an international presence around the world. For all of the criticism that people like to levy against the company – I’ve heard “it’ll be dead in five years, six years, whatever” – every year we’ve grown, every year we’ve expanded and we’ve forged ahead into new markets – the UK, now India [with new promotion Ring Ka King], and that trend will continue. I think anybody that thinks otherwise is kidding themselves – and we’ll be more than happy to prove you wrong!”
On his world title run: “The proudest moment of my career so far was winning the world heavyweight championships [back in 2008] for a bevy of reasons, but first and foremost that it was from an athlete [1996 Olympic Gold Medallist Kurt Angle] that is world-renowned and world class and one of the very best in the game. I look forward to replicating that success in the future.”
On a possible tag title run leading him to the World Title picture: “If anybody knows me as a wrestler, they know I run in streaks. Once I get hot, I don’t get un-hot. I just keep going until either I explode or I get suspended or fined. That’s the way I run. It takes a lot to get me out of the picture.”
