Samoa Joe was let go by WWE twice in the span of a year as he was first released in April 2021 then brought back by Triple H to be William Regal’s enforcer.

He later beat Karrion Kross at NXT TakeOver 36 to win the WWE NXT Title only to vacate it because of “injuries.” He worked behind-the-scenes in NXT before being released this past January. 

Joe was on today’s Busted Open Radio and noted he tested positive for COVID-19 before vacating the title. He also spoke about having a conversation with Vince McMahon about his new direction for the brand: 

“I popped for COVID. It was the weekend, my wife was making stew and I couldn’t smell it. She said, ‘Wow, doesn’t that smell great.’ I said, ‘No.’ I tested positive on Saturday. By then, Vince wanted to go in a different direction with NXT and he wanted to have the new opening with NXT 2.0 be with a bang and I agreed with him. I said, ‘If that’s the case, this is probably what’s best for what your vision is for this product.’ I went behind the scenes and started working with talent on a one to one basis, pulling guys individually in open gyms, working with them, and focusing on these new tremendous prospects were brought in and people that were hungry to learn and excited about this newfound opportunity. It was invigorating for me. When you’re working with younger talent that are hungry and want to succeed on a high level, it amps up your own spirit. I was delving into that heavily. Working with Matt Bloom on revising things, training techniques, and evaluating what we were doing already and seeing if we could do it better. That was really the end of my tenure at WWE,” he said.

H/T to Fightful for the transcription