10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Samoa Joe

7. WWE Turned Him Down Due To His Body

Samoa Joe
WWE.com

Heaven forbid a male wrestler isn't 6'2", 250 lbs of chiselled, tanned muscle and with the looks of a Hollywood movie star.

For the longest period, Vince McMahon and those higher-up in WWE had a set body image in mind for their talent. Hell, even now there's still a sense of that running wild through WWE - as seen by the changes made to Keith Lee's attire when Limitless moved from NXT to Raw last year.

While WWE opted to cover up Lee's upper body once he was brought to the main roster, Samoa Joe was turned down at several points by the company due to his body type.

Joe himself has detailed over the years how Jim Ross - who famously used to head up WWE Talent Relations - outright told him that he was not the sort of talent the company was looking for.

Putting it a little more bluntly on his Something to Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard stated:

"I’ll tell you why he wasn’t considered. [It] was because they thought he was a fat Samoan. He looked out of shape – he wasn’t the body type that Vince liked and they felt that it wouldn’t work.”

Thankfully, places such as Ring of Honor and TNA saw the value that Samoa Joe brought to the table - and for WWE, all of this is a horrendous look for them.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.