Samoa Joe Signs Full Time WWE Contract

Samoa Joe has signed a contract to work full time for WWE, effective immediately. Joe's deal went into effect this week because he was at Raw where he worked a match against Tyson Kidd for Superstars, although it may have just been a dark match. Some reports say that Kidd may have suffered an injury in the match as well. Joe won the match clean with a Muscle Buster. The news was first reported by PWTorch, who noted that Joe's merchandise sales were so impressive that Vince McMahon and Triple H wanted him to sign a deal right away. The shirts that WWE put on for sale after Joe's NXT debut on May 20 sold out within a day, so it's no surprise that WWE would want to cash in on that. It just showed how excited WWE fans were to see him as a regular in WWE. Joe's future in WWE was also confirmed by PWInsider, who also added that Ring of Honor going to Destination America played a factor because WWE didn't want Joe to appear on another wrestling show's cable TV broadcast. Now that Joe has signed that exclusive WWE deal, he's likely going to back out of that ROH appearance on June 20 unless they're willing to have him there only for a live appearance without taping it. It's not like WWE sees ROH as competition because they have a good relationship with ROH. It's just a matter of wanting Joe to be on their shows only from this point forward, which is smart business sense.

The NXT contract that Joe signed had a clause that would allow WWE to sign him a full time WWE deal if they waned. It took less than two weeks after his debut for that to happen, so clearly WWE was impressed by his work in the ring as well as his presence as a big name coming in that is able to sell merchandise too. According to the Torch report, Joe will still likely work all the independent wresting dates he has booked all the way into early August. He's also still appearing on NXT because they tape those once per month on Wednesdays, so he can certainly work a few more of those tapings. This is the second big name signed to a full time main roster contract since Kevin Owens was also signed a main roster contract last week. Owens will work WWE live events this weekend. Joe will probably be added to some of them when he doesn't have independent dates to fulfill. There's no official word on when Joe will make his main WWE roster debut. They could build it up with video packages for a few weeks in order to get people excited for it since he's likely to come in as a babyface or it could be a surprise. Owens has an open challenge on Smackdown, so perhaps Joe will answer that to make his debut. That would be fun although a Raw or PPV debut would seem more likely since they are live shows. For WWE fans, this is a great thing because the 36 year old Joe is a tremendous all around performer that adds a lot of talent and credibility to an already loaded WWE roster that keeps getting better. Congratulations to Joe on his new deal. He deserves it.