After being released by WWE for a second time in January 2022, Samoa Joe signed with AEW, debuting at ROH Supercard of Honor in April.
Aside from one match against Karrion Kross in August 2021, Joe had been out of the ring since February 2020 due to concussion issues.
Speaking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Joe was asked about his thought process before signing with AEW.
When asked why he decided to sign with AEW, Joe replied, "All the money they threw at me. Immediately, threw all my morals away...no [laughs]. I was legitimately thinking about hanging it up for health reasons. Still coming off the concussion and still dealing with the very end effects of that and getting back in the ring healthy and transitioning back to a physical state where it's like I can do something for a good period of time and not want to pass out."
Speaking about his concussions, one of which was suffered while filming a TV commercial where he caught the edge of a table, Joe said, "I basically caught two concussions very close together, which is terrible. To that point, I did take a year off to do commentary, which helped me tremendously and I do not regret taking that time. I wouldn't change it for anything. That allowed me to get healthy and get my mind back together and get back into a place where I felt confident even doing anything physical. I realize that if I were to rush that and done that, I probably, inevitably, would not have returned to the ring at all. I am happy I handled that well, despite wanting to get after it."
Joe has returned to the ring in a full-time capacity since signing with AEW. He is the reigning ROH Television Champion and regained the AEW TNT Championship on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite.
Elsewhere during the interview, Joe discussed his multiple releases from WWE. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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