Samoa Joe is now the face of All Elite Wrestling as he holds the World Heavyweight Title and is also the man who wrestled CM Punk in his final match with the promotion after his departure.
The incident
Punk’s departure was following his physical altercation with Jack Perry at All In. Samoa Joe is the last man to have wrestled Punk in AEW as they worked that show with the opening contest.
The incident with Punk and Perry nearly caused the show to be reshuffled as Punk was upset. Joe was there to calm the situation down, with the match happening as scheduled, and they went forward with the bout.
Joe’s comments
While speaking with Marc Raimondi of ESPN, Joe discussed the incident.
“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 noted that many people say Joe was the voice of reason, something the World Heavyweight Champion responded by noting there was a mission ahead of them and everybody got focused.
Joe will defend the World Heavyweight Title against HOOK on tonight’s AEW Dynamite.
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