Samoa Joe talks about not going straight to the main roster

Samoa Joe talks about not going straight to the main roster on Talk Is Jericho:

“I think the original ordeal was to bring me in as just the NXT guy. We got such a good response with everything that it kind of really blew up beyond that and here I am now on the main roster. I think it was a cultural thing in WWE of why they didn’t bring me up right away to the main roster. I think that for a long time, kind of past TNA prodigy talent had done well, and I think there was a major push in the company where they build guys from scratch, and put a tremendous amount of stock into the Performance Center, which is producing great talent, so it was kind of like, this guy can help us build NXT as a brand but maybe not necessarily be something—I guess to the company’s credit, it wasn’t something that was set in stone, it was kind of the scenario that was laid up before me where they said, listen, we can use you at NXT, but we don’t really think that it’ll go much beyond that, but at the same time, it was kind of like having confidence in yourself where I was able to show them why I belong on the main stage, so I really wasn’t worried. It was kind of like a foot in the door ordeal and I also had a lot of good people pulling for me at the time so it worked out. I don’t mind underpromised, I really despise being overpromised. You will work for and with people who will sit there and promise you the world and can’t deliver, so if you underpromise, it’s almost as if what I can give you, anything over that you are kind of overachieving in a sense, and that was my relationship with Hunter where he didn’t promise me anything, very little as a matter of fact, but as I kept going to NXT and kept working with the company and had a pretty good relationship with the company, it grew beyond that.”