Tim’s Take 2.23.08: Samoa Joe’s Descension to Ascension

Umaga is one of the best big men going in the world today. He’s ruthless and aggressive and…

…whoops. Wrong Samoan.

Although, one would argue that right now, when you look at how things are panning out, that it is indeed Umaga who might be above his Samoan counterpart of TNA. Why is that? What has been done by TNA to basically strip Samoa Joe of everything that made him a badass in the first place?

Everybody by now remembers how he first showed up on TNA. He was presented as the longest running ROH Champion in the history of the company, helping to legitimize it as a world championship, and he not only ran the gauntlet of every single TNA X-Division wrestler, but he did the way that it should have been done. The sole comparison to something like what Joe did was Goldberg, but people have to remember that Goldberg wasn’t exactly putting someone over so much as he was proving to be an unstoppable force no matter the cost. Joe himself showed that he wasn’t just an unstoppable force: he adapted so well to each and every opponent that he allowed them to feel in charge offensively, and then punish them all into submission. He didn’t make everybody else completely inferior as much as he showed he had better tactics and was able to make everybody have to wrestle at his level to have any chance to win. While Goldberg looked at everyone as a fresh piece of meat, Joe knew he had to work hard to get to where he was, and work even harder to stay there. That alone made his first 18 months in TNA a blessing.

Now, pardon me for saying it, but Joe should not have been “promoted” from the X-Division like he was. Was it cool to see him a part of the main event fold? Of course it was, but the problem with him being there is that he was so completely different from everybody else that nobody wanted to try and work like he did. As everybody has seen, Joe has worked down to the level of many of his opponents in his time near the top of TNA. The only one that immediately comes to mind as someone who he didn’t have to work down for is Christian Cage.

(Waits for any and all Angle fans to hit the “back” button and/or go right to the comment box to spam me with hateful, spiteful things…)

Back now? Good. While Vince Russo and Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel might have been running things, Kurt Angle with his work in the ring has made Samoa Joe look worse than basically everyone else at the main even level. It’s one thing to try and put Joe out as someone on Angle’s “level”, but anybody who’s been watching wrestling over the least 5 years has seen that it has not been Kurt Angle who has been on top of the world when it comes to wrestling. It’s been Samoa Joe. I’ll say it. He’s better than American Dragon. AmDrag is the best technical wrestler in the world. He has put on fantastic matches, especially since Joe became a TNA exclusive wrestler, but if you want somebody who can construct a story in the ring with a whole lot of drama and do it all while showing himself as the ace of the company, all while making everyone around him better, that is Samoa Joe to a “T.”

Kurt Angle is selfish and has seen his ego grow, mainly because he started believing all this hype pegging him as the best wrestler in the world. What he has been is someone who has shown way too many flashes of brilliance to simply be “Better than average”, which is exactly what he is right now. John Cena is a better wrestler than Kurt Angle. Christian Cage is a better wrestler than Kurt Angle. Was Kurt better than both of them at one time? Sure, but right now, I’d rather watch Cena interact with just about damn near anybody, and Christian Cage has done more in his time with TNA to make the main event truly his than anybody else on the roster. When he came over to TNA because he wanted to show just how good he was, not only did he do it, but he did it in a style that everyone else who has came over from WWE has tried to copy, but has failed to do so.

Angle has made Joe work down to his level. All 3 of his big time singles matches with Joe were not Samoa Joe matches. They were undoubtedly Kurt Angle-type matches with Samoa Joe basically running through all of his stuff. There was never a time in any of the three matches where it was apparent that Joe was running the show: it was all Angle, and Joe was just going along with it. I really hope people go back and watch the Angle matches, and then go back and watch his match with Cage at Destination X 2007. The matches are different by a long shot, and one is without a doubt better than the other three, and it’s mainly because Cage realized that Joe had been a monster, a beast, a man who would do anything to win that belt. Cage brought out the best in Joe because he realized his role, and integrated Joe’s style into the match, as opposed to making Joe a bystander while Angle tried to wrestle his match.

Samoa Joe seems to be in grave danger of falling into a trap that has been inadvertently set by his peers. Joe basically got to where he was in ROH thanks to learning from others around him that if you’re gonna be the best, you never run on ego. You go out every match and don’t leave anything left to question. I’m not the first to mention it, but any advice he received from Shin’ya Hashimoto, undoubtedly the finest big match wrestler in the history of professional wrestling, when he was wrestling during the UPW/ZERO-ONE talent swapping has gone a long way in showing Joe exactly what it means to be the “ace” of the company. In ROH, he did it in a way that has not been done since, and suffice to say, probably won’t be done for a very long time.

Now, this 6-man tag at Destination X aside, it’s basically common knowledge that Joe will get the belt at some point in the future. When he does get the belt, which Samoa Joe will he be?

For me, the style change has to happen. TNA has prided itself on matches that are long and have great builds, but the builds end up destroyed thanks to stupid storytelling mechanics that take away from the match itself. Why would you have Cage and Angle work their asses off for twenty minutes at the last PPV, only to have the title be decided thanks to a swerve that everybody and their mother’s saw coming? That’s really how you’re going to dictate your main event picture? By not allowing the work itself to try and shine through in favor of some stupid storyline push that is secondary at best? Joe as the champion for Ring of Honor meant that for anybody to try and push him to his limit, they needed to bring everything to the table and more. That’s why the Punk/Joe matches are as highly regarded as the are. Thanks to Joe establishing himself as a world beater, Punk found a way to get to Joe and to make him have to use everything he could to get rid of Punk. And it took Joe three matches to finally put him away.

Joe could allow the wrestlers of TNA to focus on the in-ring product more than ever before. Even now, with an Olympic gold medalist as the champion, TNA would rather run stupid crush angles and weddings and honeymoons than focus on the facts. One would hope that Joe wouldn’t allow himself to become just another face in the crowd. He has stood out before. There is no reason why he shouldn’t be able to stand out now, even if people don’t think of him as they did before when he first arrived in TNA. But damn it all if he doesn’t stand out as the face of TNA when he wins the belt. He would be the first guy never to be in the WWE or WCW to become their champion. That alone stands out from the crowd, and makes Samoa Joe the symbol of TNA.