"You will never work in WWE" - Jim Ross gave a brutal feedback to top AEW star

Wrestling veteran Jim Ross once told a former AEW champion quite bluntly that he would likely never be a WWE superstar. The talent in question, Samoa Joe, did eventually end up working for the sports entertainment juggernaut.

The Samoan Submission Machine plied his trade in WWE between 2015 and 2022, debuting on the promotion's developmental brand NXT before graduating to the main roster at the start of 2017. Despite his popularity and unparalleled in-ring prowess, Joe was unfortunately never booked by the company as a top name and with consistency, and was released twice, his second departure taking place in 2022.

During a recent interview on the Marking Out podcast, The Destroyer discussed a past conversation with current AEW announcer Jim Ross, and how the latter had told him that he would probably not be employed by WWE as he was not the kind of performer the promotion had been looking for at the time.

"When I first got started, Jim Ross told me to my face, ‘You will never work in WWE.’ That wasn’t malicious—it wasn’t a malicious thing. It was just saying, ‘Hey, listen, this is what we’re looking for. You are not it.’”

Joe then talked about how hearing JR's opinion freed him from any sense of desperation over joining the Stamford-based company, and allowed him to focus on building his name in and alongside other promotions. This, in turn, made him an undeniable asset to WWE, eventually leading to his signing.

“And it was one of the most liberating statements that was ever spoken to me.... I said, ‘Listen, obviously they told me I ain’t gonna make it there, so now all my focus shifts to everywhere else I can make money'. I concentrated my efforts on those spaces, and those spaces grew because of the effort that I put into them. Those spaces got better. They got more lucrative. We made more money. And because of that, when I finally started dealing with WWE, I did not do it from a position of weakness—I did it from a position of stability and mutual respect.” [H/T - Ringside News]

After WWE released him in 2022, Joe signed with AEW, where he is currently one-third of the AEW World Trios Champions as a member of The Opps.

Samoa Joe was taken out at AEW's recent stadium show

Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata and Powerhouse Hobbs put their AEW World Trios Titles on the line against Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta and their newfound ally Gabe Kidd over two weeks ago at All In : Texas. The Samoan Submission Specialist secured the victory for his team with a Muscle Buster on Yuta. Unfortunately, the veteran was ambushed by The Death Riders post-match, with Castagnoli stomping down on a steel chair wrapped around Joe's neck.

It has since been reported that the former World Champion was written off of programming at All In to allow him to promote the upcoming season of Twisted Metal, a series starring Joe in a key role.

Edited by Anurag Mukherjee