Samoa Joe re-joins NXT roster, will face Karrion Kross at TakeOver
Samoa Joe is officially back on the NXT roster.
On tonight’s episode of NXT, it was announced that Joe will challenge for Karrion Kross’ NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver 36. The show is taking place on Sunday, August 22.
After being released by WWE this April, Joe returned to NXT as an on-screen authority figure in June. He’s worked as an enforcer alongside general manager William Regal. But, after weeks of escalating issues between him and Kross, there was a segment where Joe resigned as NXT management tonight.
Joe’s resignation was a three-step process. The first step was him resigning as management, the second was him being reinstated to the NXT roster, and the third step was Joe getting an NXT Championship match against Kross at TakeOver 36. Regal signed the paperwork to make all three steps official.
Two weeks ago, Kross choked out Joe after Joe was the special guest referee for his NXT Championship defense against Johnny Gargano. There was then an angle where Kross sent a message to Joe last week, with it being revealed that Kross had laid out Regal.
TakeOver 36 will be the first time Joe has wrestled since February 2020. He’s been out of action due to concussion issues. Before being released in April, Joe was working as a color commentator on Raw.
Joe also has a behind-the-scenes role in NXT as part of the talent scouting department.
Kross has appeared on Raw each of the past two weeks. He made his debut on last week’s show, losing to Jeff Hardy. Kross then defeated Keith Lee on Raw this Monday.
TakeOver 36 is taking place the day after WWE’s SummerSlam pay-per-view. Here’s the updated TakeOver card:
- NXT Champion Karrion Kross defends against Samoa Joe
- NXT United Kingdom Champion WALTER defends against Ilja Dragunov