Samoa Joe

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[concrete1992]

Not out of the running at all. I mean TNA has killed a large amount of his career which sucks for him and AJ's case but his run as Ace of ROH gives him something to work off at least. And since I feel I'm a bigger fan of Kobashi vs Joe around these parts than most(that is nearly pure assumption) I'll probably be a bit higher on other stuff as well. And while he has this TNA black mark, he has managed to have some pretty darn good stuff there. I don't know how much it would count for in the end but if I watched enough TNA (already setting myself up for not finding out) and he ended up having the top match or at least 2 out of the Top 5 then I think that is at least something of note.

[Dylan Waco]

The thing about Joe is that he managed to have a sustained run of quality in TNA for close to 2 years. I don't think anyone else has come close to that. On top of that his initial TNA run was actually really strong, to the point where he was adding to his best in the world contender status via his work in TNA.

 

To me he has to be considered because he was a very serious best in the world contender from 2004-2006, and those were years with some reasonsably steep competition for that title.

[Timbo Slice]

I'm gonna have him on my list, probably at the bottom as one of my favorite choices. There wasn't a guy I enjoyed watching more in the middle of the 2000s. When I knew he was going to be on TV with TNA, it was appointment television until they booked him out of the big picture. With him being reasonably healthy, I would love to see the WWE sign him with so much indy talent being brought in just to see what he could do, but I'm not sure he would do it. But when he was at his best, like Dylan said, he has a case for being the best wrestler on the planet.

[shoe]

In the original SC poll one of the knocks on Joe was his longevity at the time. 10 years later it's interesting to see if he makes it or not. He's going to one of the more interesting stories.

[goodhelmet]

I love Joe in ROH. I remember telling Loss ten years ago that was some of the best wrestling I had ever seen... ever. When he went to TNA, in the fabled 2005 time period, it looked like Joe would continue his trend as one of the greats from this generation. Still, we can't talk about somebody like Ric Flair, who was great for 15 years+, criticize his last shitty ten years and forget that Joe (who had a sweet two year run) had 8 years of shit piled on top of that 2 years. Some of it was booking, some of it was motivation, some of it was opponents but life sucks that way sometimes.

[Dylan Waco]

The flipside is we can't say Flair's post-prime is irrelevant and/or minimally relevant to his case, and then say Joe's post-prime swallows alive is universally loved peak...or can we?

 

Note that I don't think I'd vote for Joe if you held a gun to my head, but he is an interesting candidate precisely because he had an off the charts peak followed by TNA killing his soul

[BigBadMick]

Joe (and a lot of the rest of the TNA roster) had a bit of a resurgence in 2012 that might be worthy of a closer look if you want another plus on his career....

[Dylan Waco]

Really? I love the Aries match, but what else did Joe do that year? He has had some random good matches over the last few years, but never felt super consistent to me.

 

Someone should start an Aries thread/nominate the required matches.

[BigBadMick]

He had a tag title run with Magnus, then challenged Aries at Slammiversary, then a good match with Angle at Destination X. Meanwhile, on Impact he was having good matches in the Bound for Glory tournament, and then feuded with Magnus to close out the year.

[goodhelmet]

Dylan, to answer that question, I would say that if we only consider his peak then we are left with the same problem from back in the Smarkschoice poll... He only had a two year peak. Also, and you can answer this, was his 2005-06 run really a home run? I know he had a three way match, the Angle matches and I don't know of anything else of note.

 

Historically, compare that with Buddy Rose who had at least an 8 year run of good-great matches and will be up in my Top 20 somewhere.

 

From his peers, Danielson and Punk were still having great matches long after their Indy run. Danielson may have had 2 or 3 Indy years that match Joe's peak. I think Hero has been more consistent longer even though he never had the peak that Joe has. Cesaro has the peak and a longer run of solid matches. I still have him in my question mark category though.

[Dylan Waco]

I would say Joe was no worse than top five in the world from the cumulative period between 04-06.

[MJH]

At the time I thought Joe's ROH run was massively overrated (whilst having some qualities - my issues, IIRC, were with the match structure/layout, as it usually has been for big, ambitious ROH stuff; it was the same with Bryan) though I'm certainly willing to go back and see how much of that was in lieu of the hype machine. I never actually got around to watching the second Punk match incidentally, essentially because of that; it'd be interesting to hear guys' thoughts long after-the-fact.

[Childs]

It really hurts Joe that he's added very little to his GOAT case since the Smarkschoice poll. As Will said, it'd be different if he had a 10-year peak to fall back on. He doesn't.

 

But he was a unique force in that indie golden age, a guy with a truly badass aura who could make matches feel big, even in a small setting. And his best shit has held up really well on recent viewings.

 

Though his short peak probably keeps him off my list, he's another guy who was too good for me to dismiss him easily.

[FedEx227]

Hmm.... Joe's an interesting one. When I was still watching him in ROH and when he had just went to TNA, I would've absolutely said this guy is a top 100 wrestler of all-time. Since then, he's had spurts here and there but he's been lapped by a lot of the field. I'm just not sure there's enough there with only his indie work to put him on my top 100 but he will certainly be in the running.

[fxnj]

I seriously think most of the appeal from Joe's 04-06 period and by extension most of the indie wrestling from back then is from the novelty of indie wrestling being the cool thing and for the first time seeing small-name guys doing a passable job aping puro epics. I tried watching his pimped stuff and and I could get the appeal but I also was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for something that felt a bit less amateurish. Putting him on the same level as the NOAH guys from that period just sounds hyperbolic, let alone basing a top 100 case solely around that run.

[Shining Wiz]

Joe circa 2004-2006 had IT. Good to great matches consistently, able to carry on multiple rivalries at once, fantastic yet subtle personality that gift perfectly and being just plain different. He'll, he even made me watch TNA. No one else has been able to do that.

 

All that being said, his TNA run is more miss than hit, and that's the biggest part of his career. You can still see flashes of what he was and maybe could be, but that sort of inconsistency, for whatever reason, is something that should penalize someone we're talking the top 100 guys of all time. So the question is how much does that penalize the best guy in the best promotion for two years in the biggest wrestling market in the world?

 

Joe's very interesting and unique case to consider.

[goodhelmet]

Can somebody point me to any Joe TNA matches in 2005 and 2006 besides the Angle series and the 3 Way Dance?

[Jimmy Redman]

Sorry about the vague dates, but the main ones are:

 

vs Chris Sabin 7/05 PPV (I forget what the TNA PPVs are called)

vs AJ Styles 8/05 PPV

vs AJ Styles 12/05 PPV

 

vs Chris Daniels 1/06 Final Resolution

vs AJ vs Daniels 2/06 Against All Odds

vs Chris Daniels 12/4/06 Impact

vs

[Childs]

His singles matches with Styles in '05 were good, especially the second one.

[Dylan Waco]

Daniels match from that first impact is incredibly great. I remember him having a shockingly good match with Sonjay Dutt. If you extend things the Sting match was good until the finish and the Aries match from 2012 is great

[Jimmy Redman]

There's also the Steiner match from Slammiversary 2006, which you'd need to watch the angles and promos for to get the full picture.

 

And outside of the timeframe, Joe and AJ had a really good PPV match in 2007 that nobody ever talks about. It was when AJ was a heel.

[stomperspc]

There was a lot of talk in this thread last fall that Joe had a case based on his pre-TNA work and his early TNA run, but that being stuck in TNA for six additional years without much to show for it greatly diminished his chances. At the very least, Joe now has an opprtunity to add to his resume. It will be interesting to see what he has left in the tank. Styles showed that it is possible for a wrestler to turn it up significantly once he leaves TNA, but just because Styles has had a great post-TNA run does not necessarily mean that Joe will have the same.

 

Joe was my favorite wrestler in 2004. He certainly has a case for best in the world that year as well. The Jay Briscoe cage match, Homicide matches, October Danielson match (disappointing but still good), Liger tag match, Punk trilogy, and Aries title switch is a heck of a resume and that’s just ROH. I am not sure anyone that year had a resume like that, even though there were a few guys (Eddie, Takayama, ect.) who had very strong 2004’s. Joe was still a top flight worker from 2005 – 2008. He had two very good matches in 2005 between the Kobashi match and the TNA 3-way. I didn’t like the TNA match as much as Meltzer (he gave it the full 5-stars) but the Kobashi match more than held up last time I watched it. I’d have to think about it, but I would be surprised if he wasn’t at least in my top 10 each of those years (2005-2008). He was good during his pre-peak years (2001 – 2003). I think that is enough to get him on the lower end of my list but I am not certain.

 

A good twelve month run would probably be enough to cement a spot. He doesn’t need to be Styles or anything. I am more interested in seeing if he is immediately one of the top 3 or so guys in ROH (my guess is that he will be). If he goes to New Japan/NOAH, I want to see how well he does in what would be the first extended Japan run of his career. FWIW, Joe had an okay singles match versus Rampage Brown for PROGRESS last year. Joe looked good – better than he typical did in TNA – but if his upcoming output is at that same level than I don’t think his status as a borderline candidate Is not going to change much one way or another for me.

[Dylan Waco]

Went back and watched some select matches from his peak recently, and I really think it's going to be hard for me to leave him off my list. There are guys who I really like and respect being touted on a few years from the 80's, who I think have resumes that are paper thin next to Joe's (to take one example, Magnum T.A.). Watching a match like Joe v. Rhino v. Monty Brown, which is a TNA hardcore match, where I don't even remember the context, it was pretty amazing how exciting the match felt and how much Joe being Joe added to it. I'm not saying it's must see or anything like that, but if a match like this happened on Raw this week people would be falling over themselves to praise it, and I'm not sure it's even a top fifty Joe match from his 3-4 year peak. I have nothing against Lesnar, and Brock is working on a bigger stage, but Joe gave off a similar vibe to me, and had much better matches.

[Jimmy Redman]

That Joe/Brown/Rhyno match is like the best random TNA match ever. I remember seeing the Meltzer rating for it and thinking that it sounded so stupidly high that I had to see for myself, so I watched it and like damn, that match is like three whole bucketfuls of fun. Everyone should know about that match.