10 Indie Wrestling Easter Eggs That Played Out In WWE

7. Samoa Joe Or UMAGA?!?!

So, yeah. It's 2006, and for some inexplicable reason, developmental TV interviewer Osama Rodriguez Alejandro is called up to television, repackaged as Armando Alejandro Estrada, and is positioned as the manager of Jamal from 3-Minute Warning who is repackaged as an unbeatable and unstoppable Samoan savage. In retrospect none of this makes sense to you either, right? However, if you were an independent wrestling fan in 2006, for the past four years you'd been watching Samoa Joe (aka Samoan-American Joe Seanoa) suplex, kick, slam and obliterate all competition in his wake in Ring of Honor and in TNA Wrestling. One of the first monster pro wrestlers in well over a generation to not be saddled with a gimmick, be seven-feet tall or look like pure, walking evil, Joe was indeed Samoan, but more closely comparable to a mixed-martial arts fighter than any other wrestler in his generation. Of course, if 2006 were 2014, Joe would be signed and down in NXT giving Adrian Neville a Muscle Buster. However, in 2006, WWE took the Samoan and took his attitude, but refused the Joe. Opting instead for a more traditional-to-WWE presentation of a Samoan as a big-boned, face-painted, lava-lava and cowrie-shell wearing savage, the now deceased Eddie Fatu became Umaga - mirroring many of the same inherent character traits as Samoa Joe - and became the main eventer that so many independent wrestling fans had learned to love Joe for developing into.