Look! It's Samoa Joe!

People seem to like them some Samoa Joe. He's the new "it" guy in wrestling, so to speak. And why not? Great worker, seems like a nice guy out of the ring and oh yeah...he'll EAT YOUR SOUL if you dare disagree.

Samoa Joe v. Necro Butcher (IWA Mid-South: Something to Prove - 6.11.05)

This is, quite possibly, my favorite match from 2005. Great backstory, with Necro & Madman Pondo kicking the shit out of two ROH trainees (Anthony Franco/Matt Turner) at last year's CHIKARA World Tag Grand Prix and Joe promising to literally kill Necro because of it. This is just a flat out bar fight. Necro takes a hell of a beating here, including an improbable sounding powerslam onto his *forehead*, but it's interesting to see him ready for more after the finish while Joe quickly gets to steppin'.

Say what you will about Necro, but the man will make you believe. I've said it in the past, but I really hope he phases out of the slice and dice stuff and focuses on his strong point: Southern style brawling. Let's just hope and prey that ROH will eventually deliver us Danielson/Necro in some way, shape or form. I can't even wrap my head around how cool that match would be. Anyway, this is about Joe and he's quite the killing machine here.

Samoa Joe v. Delirious (TNA Impact - 6.24.05)

This is from right before Impact started airing on Spike and they were airing Impact on their site. Not much of a match, but I'm a geek for Delirious and I think everyone should love him as much as I do.

Samoa Joe v. AJ Styles v. Christopher Daniels (TNA: Unbreakable - 9.11.05)

This is my favorite match of Joe's from TNA. Actually, it might be the best match in TNA history. I'm looking forward to the rematch at Against All Odds, but I'm wondering if they can top themselves. And I might be in the minority, but the Joe/Styles/Daniels troika that has a stranglehold on the X Division is starting to get stale. Hopefully, they can split up after the PPV and each can go on to do other stuff. There's plenty of other X guys that are deserving of a higher slot.

Samoa Joe v. Kenta Kobashi (ROH: Joe vs. Kobashi - 10.1.05)

Great match. Not the all time classic it's hyped up to be, though. The aura of the "big match" plays such a huge role in this one. Take the crowd out of the equation and this is actually somewhat disappointing, though I don't know that you'd expect Kobashi to go nuts. I can totally see why, if you were there live, this would rank as one of the greatest matches ever. But it just doesn't translate as well onto tape. Of course, this is me bitching about a **** match that I've watched two or three times already, so it shouldn't be taken as the knock it comes off as.

Samoa Joe v. Jushin Lyger (TNA: Bound for Glory - 10.23.05)

Again, not much of a match for various reasons (TNA had to cut it to have more time for the Gauntlet match after Nash was unable to face Jarrett in the main event). Still pretty fun and, if given the opportunity to watch a Lyger match, one should always take it.