Speaking to the New York Post, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE executive vice president for global talent strategy and development, said he believed Samoa Joe had a future in talent development and as a scout for the company before he was released from the company.
“It was something that we were already talking about anyways,” Levesque told The Post. “And what people tend to focus on, because it’s the visual, is the in front of the camera, the character side of it. But what Joe and I have been talking about for a long period of time, before COVID, probably from the time he started in WWE in general is that’s he’s a very smart guy that’s very business-oriented, has a level head, and all those things. And we discussed, ‘What is the future like and how can he help build the future,’ and he was enamored with the other side of the business and what we do.”
Samoa Joe has said Triple H called him a few hours after he was released from the company in April and asked the former NXT champion to give him some time to “work out a package.”
“It wasn’t like he got let go from one part of the company and the other part of the company hired him,” Levesque said. “It’s all one big company. Everybody knows what everybody’s doing. … There was an opportunity for him to transition, no different than you would say, ‘Well, he was released from this pitching contract and started managing the team and became a coach.’ It’s a similar situation.”
“There was an opportunity for him to leave one realm and come into the other, but in coming into the other it sort of connected the dots for him to still do something in-ring from a preference standpoint — no different than I do, or other performers who have other jobs as well,” Levesque said. “It’s a piece of it, but the bigger component is the talent-development component that he’ll be a big part of. I’m really, really excited about that because again, at this stage of my career, it’s all about developing the next generations of superstars.”
Two months later, Joe returned to NXT television as Regal’s enforcer. Joe is not cleared to wrestle, the result of a concussion in early 2020, but his of enforcer allows him to add value and a unique type of tense excitement to NXT.
