When Samoa Joe debuted on WWE NXT on Wednesday, the announcers immediately treated it like a big deal and bigged up his star power in an excited way. Joe's shirt also said "Samoa Joe" right on it. What about the people at home watching that may not have known who he was? Surely there were some of them. Not all of them are reading about wrestling online or watching other companies. That led to TNA Wrestling play by play announcer Josh Mathews going on Twitter to question WWE for it. https://twitter.com/realjoshmathews/status/601629711563755521 The reason Mathews said that is because Joe worked for TNA for nearly ten years before parting ways earlier this year. Before that, Joe first made a name for himself in Ring of Honor. Since Joe was a top guy in TNA for much of his career, there are probably some people within TNA that wish that was acknowledged. As for Mathews, he was on the first season of Tough Enough in 2001. Then he signed on with WWE as an announcer and he was there from 2002 to 2014 before being released in June 2014. He signed with TNA Wrestling soon after. When Mathews mentioned "#obscurity" he was referring to the word that WWE used when they brought Sting in and said that he was in obscurity for the 14 years since WCW died even though he was in TNA for about a decade too. Needless to say, TNA people likely didn't take too kindly to that "obscurity" remark by WWE. This is an example of WWE policy going into effect where they refuse to ever acknowledge TNA. An example of this is when they had guests on WWE Network during WrestleMania week there was a point where Ric Flair mentioned that Sting was wrestling for the last ten years. That's when Michael Cole quickly switched topics. Flair probably got in trouble for that. Following his remarks, Mathews replied to several other fans that thought he was bitter even though he insisted he was not and that he was paid well. Just because he's being honest doesn't mean he's bitter. WWE doesn't want anybody to mention TNA. It's just how they run things and it's their right to do it. That's why you're not going to see any video package of Joe's past work unless they want to strike deals with ROH or indies for it. Most likely WWE will just say that Joe made a name for himself elsewhere. Then they'll just leave it at that. It's easy to see why Mathews would be frustrated since he worked for WWE for over a decade and was probably frustrated with some things there, but this is also one of those things that most people in wrestling keep quiet about. Good for Mathews for speaking up.
John wrote at WhatCulture from December 2013 to December 2015. It was fun, but it's over for now. Follow him on Twitter @johnreport. You can also send an email to mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any questions or comments as well.
