10 Dirtiest Players In WWE History
5. Samoa Joe
Despite TNA's best efforts to grind him to dust following some dreadful repackage attempts, Samoa Joe escaped at just the right time to retain enough babyface momentum to make his NXT debut feel like a huge deal.
However, the 'Samoan Submission Machine' really came into his own on the developmental brand after turning on longtime friend and tag team partner Finn Bálor in an effort to take the NXT Title.
An infuriated Joe snapped on the 'Demon King', having worked alongside him for months in their Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic victory. First saving Finn from a Baron Corbin beating, Joe clotheslined Bálor as he recovered, before defiantly stating 'I did this to you' right up in the Champion's face before crushing his neck with a brutal muscle buster.
The incongruity of his assault was magnificent. Though on the surface, it was a sneak attack and an unnecessarily violent severance of a friendship in the quest for glory, Joe manipulated the situation to make his stance appear gallant.
Staring down the lens the following week, Joe coldly summarised that people were defined by 'the choices that they make, and the actions they put behind them', as if to justify everything he'd done as the righteous path to take. It was an inspired twist, and only made his nefarious actions that much worse.