Samoa Joe is currently the face of All Elite Wrestling, holding the World Heavyweight Title. He is also the star who faced CM Punk in his farewell match with the promotion following his departure.
Punk’s exit came after a physical incident with Jack Perry at All In. Samoa Joe is the last man to have wrestled Punk in AEW, since they worked the show’s opening contest.
The confrontation between Punk and Perry nearly forced the event to be rescheduled because Punk was unhappy. Joe was there to settle things down, and the match proceeded as planned.
Joe spoke with ESPN’s Marc Raimondi about the event.
“There was a little bit of an incident. We got it broken up. We went out there and wrestled, man. That’s the gist of it. Everybody wants it to be a lot more than what it is, but that’s what it was. And to speak any more on it would be pointless unless you’re trying to get a scorecard and stuff — but trust me, it wasn’t that type of a fight.”
When Raimondi said, “It wasn’t a big deal.” Joe replied with the following:
“Not to me. I’ve seen fights break out. Stuff happens. But again, that’s me. I’ve been in these situations, I’ve seen that. I’ll find it funny when people are like, ‘Oh, Joe’s cool with it.’ I mean, nah man, it was a high-stress situation. Sure. But I mean, it’s one I’ve seen happen many times. We get it squashed out. We had a show to do. We had [81,035] fans waiting out there. And that was my focus, because that’s what it was about at that moment. We’re about to go out and have the best night of our lives.”
Raimondi mentioned that many people thought Joe was the voice of reason, to which the World Heavyweight Champion reacted by stressing that they had a =a mission ahead of them and everybody got focused.
Joe will defend his World Heavyweight title against HOOK on tonight’s AEW Dynamite.
