Samoa Joe Talks "Reality Matches" And Compares His WWE NXT Runs

NXT Champion Samoa Joe spoke with Vicente Beltran of ViBe & Wrestling about remaining dream matches he has left in his career, along with what's different from his first and most recent run in NXT.

In regards to dream match-ups — which Joe calls them "reality matches" — Joe still has a list of names he wants to face in NXT: WALTER, Tommaso Ciampa, Peter Dunne and Roderick Strong.

"At this point, there are no dream matches, it's all reality matches," Joe said. "If you talk about Ciampa, Ciampa is right here, he is ready. If you talk about Pete Dunne, Pete Dunne is ready. WALTER, he's ready. Roderick Strong, he's ready. Let's stop dream match talk. Dream match is something you hope will happen one day, but all these are gonna go down, it's inevitable with the level of competition on NXT.

"The guys want to prove themselves. When I walk through the locker room, it's a bunch of dudes, kind of sitting there, rubbing their hands and licking their chops way too much for my liking. They understand, they understand the opportunity that's in front of them and they're ready to take advantage of it."

Joe first appeared in NXT back in 2015 at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable and eventually won the NXT Championship twice before moving to the main roster in 2017. Now back in NXT, Samoa Joe commented on the differences between the two runs.

"Yeah, we're not doing as many shows — for obvious reasons — so I'm a little less active," Joe said. "Obviously, I would love to be more a little more active, safety permitting. Completely different faces [for me]. Even when I came back to NXT the first time, there was a lot of familiar faces around me. Now, I'm genuinely dealing with a lot of people that I've never had a lot of experience with. The majority of the roster; little bit younger, little bit newer, just kind of coming into their own so it is kind of newer environment for me this time around."