10 More Superstars Who Had Better Careers Outside WWE

5. Samoa Joe

For a few years during the peak of the Attitude Era, the man who would later become Samoa Joe worked in the WWF as a jobber. For some reason, the company higher-ups didn€™t see anything in him, so they made him lose to bigger stars of theirs. Some rumors suggest that the WWF wasn€™t interested in him was because of his physique: he€™s a big on the chubby side when compared to other stars, and doesn€™t fit WWE€™s chiseled, muscular mold. By 2002, Joe was wrestling on the independent scene and TNA, where he would go on to become one of the greatest wrestlers in modern times. Combining his sheer size with MMA-style moves, Joe was a true multi-talented athlete: he was strong enough to perform power moves such as his Island Driver and Muscle Buster finishing moves, possessed the technique to perform dangerous submission moves like his Coquina Clutch, and had the sense of timing and speed to perform enzuigiris and suicide dives. When Kurt Angle began wrestling in TNA, the first person he confronted was Samoa Joe. The two of them would go on to have an outstanding feud in TNA, especially considering that Kurt Angle ended Joe€™s 18-month undefeated streak. In TNA, Joe is one of their most accomplished stars, having won every single title in the promotion, including their World Championship. He also wrestled for Ring of Honor, winning both the ROG Pure and World Championships. He would have been a perfect fit for WWE, had they ignored his lack of a super-muscular physique. His use of MMA-style wrestling moves and psychology would€™ve meshed perfectly with WWE€™s top stars, especially if Joe could€™ve gone up against Brock Lesnar. On October 12th of this year, Joe€™s TNA contract expired. This creates some uncertainty regarding his future in professional wrestling. It is possible that Joe, at 35, could end up in WWE, but that it very unlikely. That said, WWE truly missed out on Samoa Joe in the earlier years of his career. He was arguably one of the founding and most important members of the TNA roster during its earlier years, alongside AJ Styles, Abyss, and Christopher Daniels.