Samoa Joe recently spoke with 102.5 The Bone’s Drew Garabo Live (transcript via wrestlinginc.com). Here are the highlights.
On Helping John Cena Get Hired by WWE:
“Actually, John Cena’s match with me, the one that kind of got him hired with WWE, I remember they were there to look at John, obviously. He looked great, he was like the blue-chipper, and John was a good friend of mine, so I had no problem whatsoever helping him kind of highlight and do his thing. Hey man, he was a hard worker, man. He got it done, so after the match, I remember Jim Ross, head of Talent Relations at the time, I went up to him and I was like, ‘is there any interest over here?’ ‘Ah, no, son. I don’t think you’re quite going to work out here.’ Two years in, but it was cool because I was like, ‘well, if I can’t go there, I’m going to focus on all this other stuff. Where else can you make money? Oh, Japan!’ So I focused on Japan, I got a contract over there, and the rest is history.”
On How He Got Hired By WWE:
“Yeah, [Triple H] made the call, so I give him a ton of credit for me being with WWE because he was my contact point. Really, it was a bunch of dudes. It was Paul Heyman; it was Road Dogg; it was Joey Mercury. Really, it was a laundry list of people who were with the company who worked with me throughout my [pro wrestling] career.”
