A three-time NXT Champion and two-time United States Champion, Samoa Joe was one of those undervalued stars who was never quite able to reach the top of the company like many fans hoped he would. Eventually, he got relegated to a color commentary position and got released only to be re-hired by NXT and released yet again.

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But by the time he signed with WWE in 2015, Joe was already a 16-year veteran. While fans may know about his decade-long run in Impact Wrestling and some big achievements from his time in Ring of Honor, there are aspects of his pre-WWE career that fans might be unaware of.

10 Ultimate Pro Wrestling

Samoa Joe in Ultimate Pro Wrestling

When Samoa Joe debuted in 1999, he performed on the Southern California wrestling scene, and signed to Los Angeles-based Ultimate Pro Wrestling in 2000. UPW was one of the many promotions that functioned as developmental territories for WWE, and notably featured up-and-comers like Christopher Daniels, The Miz, Frankie Kazarian, Adam Pearce, and a young John Cena, among others. Joe was successful in UPW, dethroning Daniels as UPW Heavyweight Champion in 2001 and holding the belt for a record 258 days.

9 Wrestled William Regal

Steven Regal vs. Samoa Joe (UPW Pride and Punishment, 10/10/2000)

In his first NXT run, Samoa Joe was a villainous thorn in William Regal’s side, while in his second run he functioned as the muscle that would keep the promotion in order, as Regal felt he lost control. In 2000, however, the two met in a singles match in UPW, a solid effort that would have likely been amazing had it happened several years down the line. This premature dream match also notably felt like one of the earliest examples of Regal showing up in developmental as a “final boss” of sorts, as he similarly took on Kassius Ohno in NXT and Dean Ambrose in Florida Championship Wrestling.

8 Wrestled On Jakked

young Samoa Joe on WWE Jakked

As part of WWE developmental, UPW wrestlers would get tryout matches with the promotion, working dark matches or losing squash matches on minor shows. This led to Samoa Joe’s WWE debut, a loss to former Light Heavyweight Champion Essa Rios on the March 3, 20021, episode of Jakked.

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This would be Joe’s only official WWE match until 2015, making it a weird bit of trivia that Samoa Joe had a WWE match during the Attitude Era, albeit near the very end of it.

7 Helped John Cena Get Hired By WWE

Samoa Joe and John Cena in Ultimate Pro Wrestling

As previously stated, John Cena was not only in Ultimate Pro Wrestling, but wrestled there at the same time as Samoa Joe, where Cena worked a robot/cyborg gimmick as “The Prototype.” WWE officials visited UPW to scout Cena, who was wrestling Samoa Joe that night. Joe did his best to make his friend look good for WWE officials, which obviously worked. However, when Samoa Joe asked about himself, he was told there was no interest in him.

6 First Match With Bryan Danielson

Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe in EPIC Pro Wrestling

During their time together in Ring of Honor, Samoa Joe and “The American Dragon” Bryan Danielson had a number of classic clashes, including a classic 60-minute time limit draw and a steel cage bout, both for the ROH World Championship. But their first encounters actually happened before Ring of Honor, for a now-defunct SoCal promotion called EPIC Pro Wrestling. In July 2002, Joe teamed with Super Dragon against Danielson and Bryan Kendrick, and two months later the two had their first singles bout, a 20-minute time limit draw.

5 Run In Japan

Ryan Sakoda, Shinya Hashimoto, and Samoa Joe

It’s not uncommon for American indie wrestlers to do tours of Japan, and while wrestling for UPW and other indies, Samoa Joe wrestled for Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE, a Japanese indie founded by late NJPW legend Shinya Hashimoto (now run by Shinjiro Otani). Wrestling as either Samoa Joe (and later King Joe), he teamed with the late Keiji Sakoda (a.k.a. WWE’s Sakoda) to become the inaugural NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Champions, and took part in a couple of ZERO-ONE’s tournaments where he wrestled big names like Masato Tanaka and Taka Michinoku.

4 Introduced In ROH As A Hired Gun

Samoa Joe raising a fist

Samoa Joe would do some of his best work in Ring of Honor, holding the World Championship for 645 days and the Pure Championship for 112 days, as well as putting on classic matches with Nigel McGuinness, Kenta Kobashi, the aforementioned Danielson, and a host of other talent. But his introduction in the promotion may surprise fans, as he was introduced as pretty much an enforcer type.

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Samoa Joe was brought in by Christopher Daniels to take out Daniels’ rival, Low Ki, in what would be Joe’s ROH debut. Rather than being a throwaway bout, the match was an unbelievably stiff war that established Samoa Joe in the promotion, leading to him returning to ROH the following month.

3 Competed In Pro Wrestling NOAH

Samoa Joe and Magnus (a.k.a. Nick Aldis) as GHC Tag Team Champions in Pro Wrestling NOAH

One of the hottest Japanese promotions of the 2000s was Pro Wrestling NOAH, a new promotion founded in 2000 following a mass exodus from All Japan Pro Wrestling. NOAH had a working relationship with ROH, resulting in an awesome rivalry between KENTA and Danielson as well as a legendary bout between Joe and Kenta Kobashi in the United States. But lesser known are Joe’s few exploits to NOAH, during which he took on the late Mitsuharu Misawa in a losing effort for the GHC Heavyweight Championship. Many fans regard it as not quite the classic one would hope for, but a good bout nevertheless. He would later win the GHC Tag Team Championship alongside Magnus (a.k.a. Nick Aldis) during his Impact run.

2 Returned To ROH After Impact

Ring of Honor logo

In early-2015, Samoa Joe departed Impact Wrestling before showing up on NXT months later in May. In between, he had a short run back in his old stomping ground, Ring of Honor, wrestling Kyle O’Reilly, ACH, and Michael Elgin before unsuccessfully challenging Jay Briscoe for the World Championship. His final bout for ROH would be an extremely appropriate sendoff, as he’d team with AJ Styles against Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian in a tag match of all former Impact stars.

1 Only Won Impact World Title Once

Samoa Joe as Impact World Champion

As many fans know, Samoa Joe was part of Impact Wrestling for about a decade, from 2005 to 2015, where he had an auspicious run with an 18-month undefeated streak followed by a six-month run with the World Championship. While many would assume that was the beginning of Joe’s run as a top star and multi-time World Champion, this never came to fruition. While Joe held the X Division Championship five times, that World Championship run was his only reign, as he mostly just languished in the midcard.