It's been confirmed today that Samoa Joe has been released by WWE. He was actually among those fired by the company on Wednesday, but it's only just now we're getting confirmation. Joe was initially released last April, but ended up being brought back by Triple H in June (it was said at the time The Game was unhappy about the former NXT Champion's release).
Joe briefly feuded with Karrion Kross and became NXT Champion again in the process. However, the title was stripped from him due to an undisclosed "injury" when NXT became NXT 2.0.
Later, he took on a backstage role alongside William Regal to scout and train the wrestlers of tomorrow. With WWE removing those loyal to Triple H and moving away from bringing any indie talents into the company, Joe's release was arguably inevitable. It's a real loss on WWE's part, though, and there's already a lot of chatter online about what the future could hold in store for him.
Fightful notes that the impression in WWE is that Joe does intend to wrestle elsewhere, and that's evident from the Tweet below. We'd hoped last year he might head to AEW...now, when you picture the matches he could have there with the likes of Kenny Omega, Eddie Kingston, Bryan Danielson, and CM Punk, we're sure you'll agree that would be nothing short of epic.