By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Originally Published May 19

WWE executive/wrestler Triple H was guarded in his comments about Samoa Joe when when asked whether Joe will join the NXT roster during a conference call Tuesday with the wrestling media.

"I think Samoa Joe is a phenomenal talent. Whether or not we do business together, I don't know. I think he was impressed with what he saw," Hunter said, referring to Joe visiting the Performance Center "a month or two ago."

"Whether or not we do business going forward, we'll see. I don't know. I was pretty busy when he was here. I think I spoke to him for like five minutes, and it was mostly pleasantries," Hunter said.

PWTorch columnist Sean Radican reported in March that Joe was expected to sign with WWE after taking a few ROH bookings when he left TNA.

The belief is that Joe's deal will be similar to Rhyno's, which calls for frequent NXT appearances while also allowing him to take independent bookings.

Wrestling agent Bill Behrens talked about the "unique" set-up during an interview on last Wednesday's PWTorch Livecast with Torch columnist Pat McNeill at PWTorchLivecast.com.

"Any announcement that might be made about Joe working for NXT or the flexibilities will be left up to them (WWE), not to me," Behrens said. "But, I do believe what you're going to see with Samoa Joe is the beginning of a different way of working with top talent that's going to be beneficial to the business."

Generally speaking, Behrens said, "A lot of the negative that has been presented about how companies work with wrestlers has been involved in the quantity of control." He added, "In WWE's history, if you were WWE, that's all you did, you didn't do anything else... Whereas in NXT, for the first time they're starting to embrace pure indies star talent.

"Rhyno coming back, unique. Spanky (Brian Kendrick) coming back, unique," Behrens continued. "When A.J. (Styles) was leaving TNA, we heard from the Creative team briefly, but never from anyone who could hire A.J.

"At that time, A.J. was not somebody WWE would ever think about hiring. Now, that's changed dramatically within a year-and-a-half. You can see it in NXT. Paul (Levesque/Hunter) deserves all the credit because everything he's doing is thinking outside the box right now. I think it's an interesting idea."

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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