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Samoa Joe added to list of WWE NXT names that have been released

Aaron Rift

As previously noted, WWE has reportedly let go of several Producers, coaches, and writers from the WWE NXT brand including “Road Dogg” Jesse James and William Regal.

According to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com, Samoa Joe has been added to the list of names from NXT that have been released. Joe was released from WWE for the first time on April 15th 2021 but was then rehired a short time later to be part of the WWE NXT brand. Joe would go on to defeat Karrion Kross for the NXT Title at the Takeover 36 PPV but then relinquished the title just two days before the beginning of the NXT 2.0 era. Joe disappeared from NXT television after the 2.0 rebranding and worked behind the scenes as a talent scout. Joe was spotted with Regal at WWE tryouts in December…

Joe issued a brief statement regarding his departure…

“Extremely fortunate and grateful to all the young & amazing talent I had the pleasure of working with in the past months. Only saddened at the loss of an ‘excuse’ to see their continued growth & achievement . I am very excited for there future,….. and mine.”

In an interview with NYPost.com from July, Triple H said the following about Joe being rehired…

“It wasn’t like he got let go from one part of the company and the other part of the company [hired him]. It’s all one big company. Everybody knows what everybody’s doing. … There was an opportunity for him to transition, no different than you would say, ‘Well, he was released from this pitching contract and started managing the team and became a coach.’ It’s a similar situation.”