In an era of daredevil spot merchants and chiselled, protein shake musclemen, one man bucks the trend and stands alone. That man is Samoa Joe. Despite being consistently ignored by the WWE (presumably because he doesnt fit their increasingly identikit view of what a wrestling star ought to look like), Joe is rightly regarded by fans of ROH and TNA (where he is a former World Champion) as being one of the very best wrestlers working in the world today. Billed as The Samoan Submission Machine, Samoa Joe is a true original. With a body type that hearkens back to the bullish frames of yesteryears wrestlers and a moveset that combines decidedly old school holds and reversals with new school MMA, Joe is a headlong collision of what wrestling was and what wrestling is, combined with a unique flavour all of his own. In addition, despite his size and shape, Joe is able to move with cat-like agility. His flying shoulder drops, diving knee drops and flying kicks are a sight to behold. At times, it appears that Joe is capable of literally any wrestling move you care to think of. Equipped with one of the most devastating looking finishers in the business today (he calls it The Muscle Buster), as well as his fearful arsenal of choke holds (in particular, The Coquina Clutch) Samoa Joe has been a major star in TNA for almost a decade. His matches with wrestlers like Kurt Angle and Low Ki are nothing short of exemplary and demonstrate that, despite what his critics may say, Joe is as fit or fitter than anybody in the business right now. His body of work also demonstrates that he is able to work convincingly with opponents of any size or weight class. In interviews and on camera, Samoa Joe is deadpan, always serious and exudes a general aura of danger about him. In short, hes a believable tough guy, with a hefty amount of old school wrestling in his heart. Joe neither looks like, nor works like, a wrestling star of todays era, but hes tough as old shoe leather and easily as good, if not better, than anybody out there.
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
