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Samoa Joe Announces He is Leaving ROH
| Critic of the Dawn | Posted on 02/01/07 at 06:26:27 In Ring of Honor's January 31st Video Wire, Samoa Joe announced that he would be leaving Ring of Honor. mms://128.241.238.33/ROH/sVideoWire_01_31_07.wmv After more than three years, three years in which both Samoa Joe and Ring of Honor grew together in popularity and reputation, Samoa Joe has announced that he is leaving the promotion where he made his name. Visibly saddened, he put over Ring of Honor and promised to give his best for the few dates he still has remaining. Joe is by far the biggest name on the Ring of Honor roster, and losing him will hurt a lot. While I have no doubt that ROH will continue to build new stars, it will be a long time before they find another prospect with the unique blend of wrestling talent, charisma, and brutality which made Samoa Joe such a huge asset. Good bye, Joe. Ring of Honor will miss you. The fans will miss you. And (if you'll excuse the anti-TNA conceit) professional wrestling will miss you. Guess I've got no choice but to attend ROH's next Philly show so I can wish Joe farewell. Eric "Critic of the Dawn" |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/01/07 at 06:41:37 let's welcome Joe to the wide world of sports entertainment. So Joe's WWE debut should be right after WrestleMania then? ;) |
| Critic of the Dawn | Posted on 02/01/07 at 07:10:38 Well, from what I've managed to gather, it looks like Joe is in line for a NWA World Title Push, and has basically been informed that if he wants to take that step and be pushed as TNA's top name, he needs to devote himself totally to TNA. Much as I love Joe's ROH work, he'd be crazy to pass up this opportunity. Eric "Critic of the Dawn" |
| rey619 | Posted on 02/01/07 at 15:07:49 Yeah, we all knew the day would come when Samoa Joe would be too big for ROH. Guess that day is upon us. Makes me want to go to England for his final show even more, but just can't afford it... :P Wonder how long it'll take before Homicide, Aries and Daniels follow suit. |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/01/07 at 21:30:09 This was massivly depressing news when I heard about it. I'll be there for the 2/17 Philly show... and that should be one helluva match. (Samoa Joe -vs- Davey Richards). On 02/01/07 at 15:07:49, rey619 wrote:I really don't see Homicide/Aries/Daniels following him at all. Unless they get a main spot past Christian, Scott Steiner, or Kurt Angle... I don't see them as being full time TNA wrestlers. |
| Critic of the Dawn | Posted on 02/02/07 at 05:21:38 I was just discussing the matter with a good friend of mine, and a question occurred to me. With Samoa Joe soon to be out of the picture, who does ROH push as their new overpowering "Big Man"? I've got a few thoughts, but I'd like to hear your input. Eric "Critic of the Dawn" |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/02/07 at 07:19:12 A) Nigel McGuinness- The guy is a beast. Simply put. IMHO... the best wrestler in RoH today... active AND inactive. He is going to be the next RoH World Champion, and will put up a hell of a run. B) Davey Richards- Give him time. By the end of 2007, the RoH fans will be all over Richards like they were all over Danielson in early 2005. The only thing I have seen missing from this guy is character... but when I went to the Edison show on 1/27 I saw plenty of it. Give Delirious & Davey Richards the tag titles, let Davey get comftorble with developing a stable balance between comedy and seriousness in his character... let them drop the titles to The Briscoe Brothers mid 2007... and boom. W/ McGuinness as World Champion... you can put Richards in his place and you got a new class of Main Eventers to play around with. C) BJ Whitmer- This is stretching it. He is not a serious threat because he's jobbed (w/ all due respect) to all of RoH's current main eventers. But hey... if Jimmy Jacobs can go back to IWA-MS and Low-Ki can lose more than 3 matches a year... anything is possible in INDY wrestling. |
| Zedja | Posted on 02/02/07 at 08:15:56 I wonder if it's TNA that wants him to leave or that insane thing Samoa had against NOAH (real or shoot) or both that has him part ways with ROH. |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/02/07 at 16:57:49 In the videowire he said himself that he is forced to leave. Its definatly TNA. |
| Critic of the Dawn | Posted on 02/03/07 at 04:28:47On 02/02/07 at 07:19:12, Modified Cravat wrote:A) Nigel McGuinness- The guy is a beast. Simply put. IMHO... the best wrestler in RoH today... active AND inactive. He is going to be the next RoH World Champion, and will put up a hell of a run.When I say "Big Man," I mean in terms of stature as well as monster push. I can definately see Davey Richards getting a push, but I don't think he's physically large enough to qualify as a "Big Man." Nigel McGuinness is a legit heavyweight, but only barely... At just a BJ Whitmer has a bit more bulk to him, but he has all the charisma of an onion, and I don't see him going higher than the upper midcard for a long, long time. Two guys that have occurred to me as possible men to fill Joe's role are Brent Albright and Doug Basham. There is apparently some interest in Doug Basham from ROH, if the dirt sheets are to be believed. As ex-WWE guys, both of them have a bit more size than most ROH talent, and both have reputations as good workers. While Basham never impressed me in WWE, by all accounts his OVW work was stellar. And, interestingly enough, ROH seems to be giving Albright a similar role to the one given to Joe when he first joined the company - the dangerous mercenary. Thoughts? Eric "Critic of the Dawn" |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/03/07 at 05:46:21 They should delve into the Puerto Rico territory and bring in someone from there... someone like Bison Smith. |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/03/07 at 05:53:58 I don't neccessarilly think they need someone of his stature to be a big man. No one can really fill his shoes... :-/. But yeah. I see where you are coming from Critic. Give it a good year or two and we can see Albright a main part as the "Big Man" in RoH. |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/03/07 at 06:02:42 Perhaps WWE can send Khali to ROH? ;) |
| Anubis | Posted on 02/03/07 at 07:11:30On 02/03/07 at 06:02:42, Rick Garrard wrote:Perhaps WWE can send Khali to ROH? ;)Huh? ... ....... .......... Oh! I get it! Took me a moment, but then I realized you're trying to get the Great Khali killed. Sorry it took me a bit to realize that. Sending him to ROH would certainly work, because the moment he beat anyone on the ROH roster, the fans would riot and trample that big piece of crap to death. I wouldn't wanna see that big goook go over Dana Dameson in a match (I like how Dana used to look before she got fat, but she is no wrestler), much less anyone with any sort of talent. That guy makes Big Show look like Bryan Danielson. P.S. To answer the original topic, my money is on a long shot: Colt Cabana. |
| Critic of the Dawn | Posted on 02/03/07 at 08:12:21 Rick Garrard pushing for Bison Smith? I never would have imagined! ;D As for Cabana as ROH's resident dominant "Big Man..." They'd really need to change up his character a LOT for that to work for me. Cabana is a talented wrestler, and he's one of the larger guys in ROH, but his real strength lies in his charisma and his comedy work. So long as the fans mainly associate him with comedy and quirky promos, they're going to have trouble viewing him as a nigh-on-unstoppable monster. Or, perhaps more accurately, if a wacky goofball somehow becomes almost impossible to defeat, it'd make everyone else look weaker. Could Cabana pull off enough of a gimmick shift to make it work? Maybe. But it'd be a big risk to change up the gimmick of a guy who is already very popular. Eric "Critic of the Dawn" |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/03/07 at 16:24:06 I've been a Mark "Bison" Smith fan since I first saw him lose a loser leaves the island match in Puerto Rico's IWA about 2 1/2 year ago. He wrestles smart for a big man. Of course this was around the same time that current OVW hand Chet "The Jett" Jablonski was there teaming with Andy Anderson. Since the Empire Sports Network ceased operations (it was an indy sports channel in upstate New York that carried a lot of indy wrestling) I have not seen an episode of it. When you look back at the rosters of both Puerto Rican wrestling companies from that time, there are a LOT of folks from there that have made it to either WWE or TNA, so it goes to show that crowds that still buy into kayfabe make for a good training ground. |
| Zedja | Posted on 02/03/07 at 19:07:25On 02/02/07 at 16:57:49, Modified Cravat wrote:In the videowire he said himself that he is forced to leave. Its definatly TNA.Maybe it was ROH that forced him to leave to please NOAH. |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/03/07 at 20:14:48On 02/03/07 at 19:07:25, Zedja wrote:No way would RoH kick Joe out. BTW, the NOAH/RoH confeentation is all an angle... no real hatred between the two. |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/03/07 at 20:29:11 NOAH showed up on the AAA Noti segment of Lucha on Galavision today doing a tribute to Antonio Pena from what I could tell. And they showed Konnan doing a stretcher job as well during their wrestling news segment. |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/04/07 at 04:06:47 I can't believe nobody has thought of this yet. No one in RoH right now can fill in Joe's position. So why not bring in Sylvester Terkay? |
| Pulsar | Posted on 02/04/07 at 06:46:34On 02/04/07 at 04:06:47, Modified Cravat wrote:I can't believe nobody has thought of this yet. No one in RoH right now can fill in Joe's position. So why not bring in Sylvester Terkay?Cause he sucks? |
| Rick Garrard | Posted on 02/04/07 at 15:41:23 there's a reason it called "Develop mental" (space intended). They take guys that were once good and turn them into WWE robots. Hopefully Terkay hasn't "lost his way". |
| Modified Cravat | Posted on 02/04/07 at 23:35:38 Look at Albright. He sucked. Now he's good. |