Last night saw the highly anticipated return of Ring of Honor, with the company recently acquired by AEW President Tony Khan presenting their “Supercard of Honor 2022” show.
In the aftermath of the main event between Jonathan Gresham and Bandido over the ROH World Championship, former ROH Champion Samoa Joe made his shocking return to the company, having not appeared in a ROH ring since 2008.
It has since been confirmed that Joe has also officially signed with AEW, and Joe made his intentions clear on media duties after the show, answering any questions about his ambitions in both promotions.
“World Champion. That’s why I’m here. I tried my bid at bettering the world of professional wrestling, but at the end of the day, I’m here in AEW and ROH to be a Unified Champion. I’m here to win the AEW Championship and Ring of Honor Championship. I’m here to win anything they put in front of me. I’m more than willing to go into the Owen Hart (tournament) and win that. This ain’t a game anymore. AEW has a lot of feel-good moments, a lot of great wrestlers who respect each other. I don’t respect nobody. Until you’re in the ring with me. I’m coming out there to smack people in the mouth and take what they have. That’s pretty much my edict when I’m here. Broadcaster, mentor, good guy, I am all those things, but not here. Not here.”
Joe’s return to ROH comes after his January 6th 2020 WWE release, having previously been released and then re-signed in 2021.
Samoa Joe is the record-holder for the longest single reign as Ring of Honor World Champion at 645 days, and was inducted in the inaugural class of the companies Hall of Fame this year.
Also in the post-show discussion, Joe would go on to comment about Tony Khan’s acquisition of ROH.
“[Tony Khan buying ROH] was a major surprise to me, especially coming from my former position and how hard I was pushing to buy the library for the other company. It let me know why it was being such a difficult process. When that did come up, at the same, having Tony have it and know how much he loves wrestling and knowing how much he loved ROH and product, just from our meetings and the time knowing each other, I knew it would be good hands. I knew it would be treated with respect and it would be kind of made available to the fans in the best way possible. I was very happy with it.”
Samoa Joe
Many fans had speculated that WWE were interested in the purchase of ROH’s taps library for the WWE Network, and these comments from Joe further confirm that there were pushes from within the company for them to do so.
Joe is set to appear on the upcoming episode of AEW Dynamite, and if his post-show comments are anything to go by, he’s certain to make a major impact in both All Elite Wrestling and Ring of Honor in the coming months.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription
