Former WWE star and a former two times WWE United States champion Samoa Joe who is also a former three times WWE NXT champion recently gave his opinion on the upcoming pay per view event that is being organised simultaneously by AEW and NJPW.
The Forbidden door is an upcoming pay per view event where two of the major professional wrestling promotions are collaborating to produce some big matches together. This is a new concept and it can be a huge deal if booked well. This would be a big threat for the mighty WWE as well to maintain their position.
Samoa Joe – Samoa Joe Gives His Opinion On The Forbidden Door
The concept of Forbidden Door is not new. Almost every professional wrestling promotion used to do it in the earlier days of pro wrestling. WWE was not out of this list. They had the forbidden door opened for other professional wrestling promotions till the early Attitude Era. But after they became the top promotion in the world, they stopped it.
But all of the other promotions apart from WWE have their Forbidden doors open for every other promotion. Recently WWE was seen working with the Impact Wrestling when they allowed impact Knockout champion Mickey James to work in the Royal Rumble match. It had been a very popular concept throughout the years.
Samoa Joe who is also a former three times WWE NXT champion recently spoke to AEW Unrestricted where he gave his opinion on the upcoming pay per view event that is being organised simultaneously by AEW and NJPW. Samoa Joe said;
“Maybe my definition of forbidden door and yours is different, but mine was always WWE, who, that door is still not open. If you’re talking about co-promoting with like New Japan and other promotions and Ring of Honor, that’s fine. But to me, that’s never been considered a forbidden door. I co-promoted with Ring of Honor and New Japan years ago. It didn’t turn out well. It wasn’t a good collaboration. From that experience, that’s what I base my experiences on.”
“Even to this day, when you’re talking about the forbidden door, I’m talking about it from the standpoint of where I’m at and where the people are at. The door that’s currently up is what adds value to a lot of the wrestlers. To me, even though I’ve dealt with Tony and I have a very different feeling now that I’m dealing personally with Tony, and talking business about how he handles himself and what his vision is, which is very noble and I’m surprised to hear but, when the promoters start working together, does that usually work out for the wrestlers? Like I’m just talking about from a labor standpoint.”
“I know this may blow up the narrative, but like, that’s how I understood it. I’m not on the internet every day catching on all the buzzwords and getting with the revolution and stuff. I think the arguing between the AEW and the WWE fans is ridiculous. Watch pro wrestling. You don’t need to dunk on this. It’s you taking your ego, and taking something you have nothing involved with, and trying to start a conflict. I mean, watch what you watch, enjoy what you want to enjoy, but hey, I’m always going to be pro value for wrestlers, no matter what.”
“Wrestlers should be getting the top dollar and getting paid the most you should possibly be paid, and be valued at the highest level. I will never apologize for that opinion, and I will never go back on that opinion. If guys take that as some shot like, ‘Oh, well now you’re here and now you sold out’, no, my opinion is still the same.”
“As far as I see it, that door is still up. But there’s benefits to that door being up and there’s the benefits of that door being open. The door can be opened, but there’s got to be a lot of change industry wide before I’d be comfortable with it as a performer, and from where I’m standing as an entertainer who’s been in this business, who has actually dealt with the financials, and knows what this business is about. I mean, I know you have your glorified view of what this war is. You think we line up on each side, but the real war is us trying to entertain you people, not this ridiculousness between y’all.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription