Orange County, California · ROH · TNA · NJPW · WWE · AEW · 1999–present
Samoa Joe has been the most credible man in every room he has entered for twenty-six years, and in 2026 the room is a television set. He is the only wrestler to hold the ROH, TNA and AEW world championships — a fact Wikipedia states outright — plus a record three NXT Championships in WWE, and his 645-day ROH reign from 2003 to 2004 remains the measuring stick for independent title runs. 645days as ROH World Champion, 2003–04 — still the record, with 29 defenses across two continentsHe is a two-time AEW World Champion as recently as December 2025. He is also, right now, not wrestling at all: he announced a hiatus on the May 27, 2026 Dynamite to film the next season of Twisted Metal, in which he plays Sweet Tooth, and handed The Opps to Hook on his way out the door.
The legend was built fast and violently. Trained for roughly three months at the UIWA West Coast Dojo, he debuted in December 1999, and by March 22, 2003 he had beaten Xavier in Philadelphia for the ROH World Championship he would keep for 645 days and 29 defenses. 182days as TNA World Heavyweight Champion in 2008, won from Kurt Angle inside the six-sided cageThe reign contained the CM Punk trilogy — the October 16, 2004 sixty-minute draw took five stars from Dave Meltzer — and ended against Austin Aries at Final Battle on December 26, 2004; the October 1, 2005 dream match with Kenta Kobashi, another five-star classic, won Match of the Year. TNA got the next decade: an unbeaten streak that Wikipedia logs at 19 months before Kurt Angle ended it at Genesis on November 19, 2006, the TNA World Heavyweight Championship won from Angle inside the cage at Lockdown on April 13, 2008, five X Division titles and the 18-month Angle rivalry that took PWI’s Feud of the Year. WWE, from 2015, added three NXT Championships — the third won at TakeOver 36 on August 22, 2021 and vacated through injury — two United States Championships, and two releases inside nine months, the second in January 2022 days after his induction in the ROH Hall of Fame’s inaugural class.
The AEW act has been the longest late peak in the business. He arrived in 2022, held the ROH Television and TNT titles simultaneously, and beat MJF at Worlds End on December 30, 2023 to complete the three-promotion world title set at age 44. 35days in the second AEW World Championship reign — Full Gear to Worlds End 2025, taken back by MJFSwerve Strickland ended that first reign at Dynasty on April 21, 2024 after 113 days. The second act ran through The Opps — the stable he formed in February 2025 with Hook and Katsuyori Shibata — whose trios title win over the Death Riders on April 16, 2025 began a reign Wikipedia counts at 273 days. At Full Gear on November 22, 2025, Hook’s belt shot inside a steel cage made Joe a two-time AEW World Champion over Hangman Page, and Swerve returned on the stage the same night; MJF took the title back at Worlds End on December 27 after 35 days. A concussion-related layoff ate the early spring, Hook minded the store, Joe returned on April 22, lost to Ospreay in May, and left for Toronto. The mask he wears there belongs to Sweet Tooth; the one he wrestles in has never existed. Sleep, fella.
Sixteen documented bouts across four promotions and 23 years — the reign-defining matches in each company, both AEW World Championship changes in each direction, and the May 2026 Ospreay loss that stands as his last match before the filming hiatus. A curated ledger, not a career count: no verified win–loss total exists for a career this long and none is invented. The 2016 NXT title change happened at a non-televised live event in Lowell, Massachusetts, and is dated to the event itself. Filter by promotion or match type, tap any column header to sort, and turn spoilers on to reveal results.
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The book is kayfabe protected
| Res | Date | Promo | Event | Opponent(s) | Stipulation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | 2003-03-22 | ROH | Night of Champions — Philadelphia | Xavier | Singles — the 645-day reign begins | ROH World Championship |
| D | 2004-10-16 | ROH | Joe vs. Punk II — Chicago Ridge | CM Punk | 60-minute draw — five stars (Meltzer), the middle chapter of the trilogy | ROH World Championship |
| L | 2004-12-26 | ROH | Final Battle | Austin Aries | Singles — the 645-day reign ends | ROH World Championship |
| L | 2005-10-01 | ROH | Joe vs. Kobashi — New York | Kenta Kobashi | Dream match — five stars (Meltzer), 2005 Match of the Year | — |
| L | 2006-11-19 | TNA | Genesis | Kurt Angle | Singles — the first loss of his TNA run ends the unbeaten streak | — |
| W | 2008-04-13 | TNA | Lockdown | Kurt Angle | Six Sides of Steel — first TNA World Champion of the rivalry | TNA World Heavyweight Championship |
| L | 2008-10-12 | TNA | Bound for Glory IV | Sting | Singles — the 182-day reign ends | TNA World Heavyweight Championship |
| W | 2016-04-21 | WWE | NXT — Lowell, Massachusetts | Finn Balor | Singles — first NXT Championship, won at a live event | NXT Championship |
| W | 2021-08-22 | WWE | NXT TakeOver 36 | Karrion Kross | Singles — a record third NXT Championship; vacated that September through injury | NXT Championship |
| W | 2023-12-30 | AEW | Worlds End | MJF | Singles — world champion in a third major promotion | AEW World Championship |
| L | 2024-04-21 | AEW | Dynasty | Swerve Strickland | Singles — the 113-day reign ends | AEW World Championship |
| W | 2025-04-16 | AEW | Dynamite: Spring BreakThru | The Death Riders | Trios, with Katsuyori Shibata & Powerhouse Hobbs — Hook injured | AEW World Trios Championship |
| W | 2025-07-12 | AEW | All In: Texas | The Death Riders & Gabe Kidd | Trios defense — retained, then beaten down after the bell | AEW World Trios Championship |
| W | 2025-11-22 | AEW | Full Gear — Newark | Hangman Page | Steel cage — Hook's belt shot decides it; second AEW World Championship | AEW World Championship |
| L | 2025-12-27 | AEW | Worlds End | MJF | Singles — the 35-day reign ends | AEW World Championship |
| L | 2026-05-24 | AEW | Double or Nothing | Will Ospreay | Owen Hart Cup first round — his last match before the filming hiatus | — |
| No career-defining bouts match this filter. See them in the full record | ||||||
12 of 16 matches shown
Curated ledger · documented highlights · some bouts are not listed
Three matches, two decades old, that still headline every retrospective — the sixty-minute draw with CM Punk, the Kobashi dream match, and the TNA three-way that put the promotion on the map. The five-star ratings are Dave Meltzer’s as recorded by Wikipedia; the Punk and Kobashi matches are among the most cited American matches of their decade.
vs CM Punk
ROH World Championship — 60-minute draw
vs Kenta Kobashi
Dream match — 2005 Match of the Year
vs AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels
Triple threat — TNA X Division Championship
World championships in three promotions — a set nobody else has — plus a drawer of everything underneath. Reigns whose exact dates were not re-verified in this pass say so rather than guessing.
March 22, 2003 – December 26, 2004 · def. Xavier at Night of Champions, lost to Austin Aries at Final Battle · 645 days, the record, with 29 defenses across the US and Europe and the CM Punk trilogy inside it
April 13 – October 12, 2008 · def. Kurt Angle in the Six Sides of Steel at Lockdown, lost to Sting at Bound for Glory IV · 182 days
2023–24 · def. MJF at Worlds End on December 30, lost to Swerve Strickland at Dynasty on April 21 — 113 days · 2025 · def. Hangman Page in the Full Gear steel cage on November 22, lost to MJF at Worlds End on December 27 — 35 days · the win made him the only man to hold AEW, ROH and TNA world titles
2016 · def. Finn Balor on April 21 in Lowell, lost to Shinsuke Nakamura after 121 days · 2016 · a 14-day second reign that November-December · 2021 · def. Karrion Kross at TakeOver 36 on August 22, vacated that September through injury — the record third reign
April 16, 2025 – January 2026, as The Opps · won from the Death Riders with Shibata and Hobbs, lost to Hangman Page and JetSpeed · 273 days per Wikipedia — the loss aired January 17 on tape delay, endpoints that produce 276, so the recognized change is presumably the taping; both numbers printed
Five reigns between 2005 and 2014, including the Unbreakable triple threat era · individual dates not re-verified in this pass
Two reigns in 2019 · exact dates not re-verified in this pass and not guessed at
Two TNT reigns and one record-setting ROH TV reign, 2022–23, held overlapping — the “King of Television” era · reign dates not re-verified in this pass
Two tag reigns and a 2012 Television title · partners and dates not re-verified in this pass
2005 · lost to Nigel McGuinness that August · plus the ROH Hall of Fame, inaugural class, January 2022
Three stables across three eras — muscle for a prophet, a mafia seat, and finally his own crew.
Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, and associates
His entry point to Ring of Honor: the heavy in Christopher Daniels' anti-Code-of-Honor unit. He outgrew it almost immediately — the ROH World Championship won in March 2003 turned the enforcer into the franchise, and the reign outlived the stable.
Kurt Angle, Sting, Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Samoa Joe
The veteran supergroup he joined as its youngest made man, during and after his world title year — an alliance of champions that put him alongside the generation he had spent 2005-07 trying to knock over. His membership card read differently than the others': he was the one who had come up through the company.
Samoa Joe, Hook, Katsuyori Shibata; Powerhouse Hobbs from April 2025 to January 2026; Anthony Bowens from April 2026
His own stable at last, debuted February 12, 2025. Won the AEW World Trios Championship from the Death Riders on April 16, 2025 — Hobbs subbing for an injured Hook — and held it into January 2026, with defenses at All In: Texas and Forbidden Door. Hook's cage-side belt shot handed Joe the world title at Full Gear; Hobbs left when his contract expired January 15, 2026; Hook has led the group since February 7 and holds the reins through the Twisted Metal hiatus. The name is the mission statement: opposition, in bulk.
One name for twenty-six years — the reinventions have all been in role, not costume.
The nickname that defined the independent legend: a heavyweight who moved like a junior, choked like a shooter and treated selling as optional for the first thirty seconds. Rookie of the Year in Southern California in 2000, unbeatable in TNA for 19 months by Wikipedia's count.
The NXT and main-roster heel: three NXT Championships, two US titles, and a run as the promo of record — his 2017-18 Brock Lesnar and AJ Styles programs were carried on the microphone as much as the mat. Two releases inside nine months ended it; the ROH Hall of Fame induction came the same January as the second.
The self-bestowed title of the TNT/ROH TV double-champion era, and the best version of the late-career bully: squash matches, short work, total contempt. It ran directly into the MJF program that made him AEW World Champion at 44.
The double life of the current era: leader of his own stable on Wednesdays and the murderous clown of Twisted Metal on Peacock — a role big enough that AEW writes his filming blocks into the story. The 2026 hiatus is the third absence the show has papered over with the character's own logic: the Opps hold his territory until he gets back.
A three-month training camp to world titles in three promotions, twenty-two years apart.
Trains at the UIWA West Coast Dojo and debuts in December; named Southern California Rookie of the Year for 2000.
Beats Xavier for the ROH World Championship on March 22 in Philadelphia and holds it 645 days with 29 defenses — still the record.
Wrestles CM Punk to a five-star, sixty-minute draw on October 16; Austin Aries ends the reign at Final Battle on December 26.
The Kobashi dream match on October 1 wins Match of the Year; the Unbreakable triple threat with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels on September 11 becomes TNA's calling card; his TNA unbeaten run is underway.
Kurt Angle beats him at Genesis on November 19 — his first TNA loss, ending a streak Wikipedia logs at 19 months — and ignites the 18-month rivalry named PWI's 2007 Feud of the Year.
Beats Angle in the Six Sides of Steel at Lockdown on April 13 and reigns 182 days, losing to Sting at Bound for Glory in October. Joins the Main Event Mafia soon after.
Beats Finn Balor at a Lowell live event on April 21 for his first WWE title, loses it to Nakamura, regains it briefly in a 14-day second reign.
Returns from release to beat Karrion Kross at TakeOver 36 on August 22; injury forces him to vacate in September; WWE releases him again in January 2022, days after his inaugural-class ROH Hall of Fame induction.
After the King of Television run, beats MJF at Worlds End on December 30 for the AEW World Championship — ROH, TNA and AEW world titles, the only man with all three.
Forms The Opps in February; wins the trios titles April 16; beats Hangman Page in the Full Gear cage on November 22 with Hook's help; loses the title back to MJF at Worlds End on December 27, after 35 days.
A roughly three-month injury layoff ends April 22; Will Ospreay beats him in the Owen Hart Cup at Double or Nothing on May 24; he announces the Twisted Metal filming hiatus on the May 27 Dynamite and hands The Opps to Hook. Teases All In: London and does not appear there on August 30. Return date open.
Who he went to war with.
The trilogy that made two careers: three ROH World Championship matches in 2004, the second a sixty-minute draw on October 16 that took five stars from Dave Meltzer — by reputation the first American match so rated in years — and made the case that the independents were producing the best wrestling in the country. Every subsequent Joe-Punk meeting, in any company, traded on it.
The TNA rivalry of record: Angle ended the unbeaten streak at Genesis in November 2006, Joe took the world title from him inside the Lockdown cage in April 2008, and the 18-month arc between was PWI's 2007 Feud of the Year. The rare feud where the Olympian was the establishment and the submission machine was the insurgency.
The X Division triangle, peaking in the Unbreakable triple threat of September 11, 2005 — five stars, TNA's first, and the match the promotion used for years as proof of concept. Joe's five X Division reigns are woven through it.
One night only, October 1, 2005 in New York — the dream match against the NOAH legend, a loss, five stars, and the 2005 Match of the Year. Still the bout casual histories reach for first when explaining what Joe was.
The AEW book-ends: Joe beat MJF at Worlds End 2023 for his first AEW World Championship — completing the three-promotion set — and MJF took the second reign back at Worlds End 2025, 35 days after Full Gear. Two Decembers, two title changes, one rivalry conducted mostly in contempt.
The 2024-25 world title triangle: Swerve ended Joe's first AEW reign at Dynasty in April 2024; Joe ended Hangman's 133-day reign in the Full Gear 2025 cage, with Hook's belt shot doing the deciding; and Swerve returned on the stage that same night. The thread AEW left hanging when the filming break began.
The rare wrestler whose acting career is a booking consideration.
Sweet Tooth — the body and menace of the killer clown — on the Peacock series. The 2026 season's filming block, June 15 to August 26 in Toronto per Wrestling Inc., is the reason for the current AEW hiatus, and AEW has written all three of his Twisted Metal absences into its television.
The voice of King Shark in Rocksteady's DC game.
Plays antagonist Raymond Law — likeness and voice — in the Yakuza spin-off, per Wikipedia.
Fill-in commentary work during injury spells, and a playable roster spot in AEW Fight Forever (2023).
The records, stated with their sources — and one date-arithmetic conflict printed instead of resolved.
Wikipedia states it flatly. ROH in 2003, TNA in 2008, AEW in 2023 and again in 2025 — a twenty-two-year spread between the first and the last.
March 22, 2003 to December 26, 2004, with 29 defenses across the United States and Europe. The reign contains the Punk trilogy and predates every other record-length modern reign it gets compared to.
2016, 2016 and 2021 — the third won at TakeOver 36 on August 22, 2021 and vacated through injury that September, on the same card where Ilja Dragunov ended Gunther's 870-day NXT UK reign.
113 days from Worlds End 2023, ended by Swerve Strickland; 35 days from Full Gear 2025 — won in a steel cage over Hangman Page via Hook's belt shot — ended by MJF at Worlds End 2025.
Wikipedia's figure, ended by Kurt Angle at Genesis on November 19, 2006. Coverage elsewhere often says 18 months; the June 2005 arrival and November 2006 first loss sit between the two figures, so both circulate and both are flagged here.
The Opps' reign ran from April 16, 2025 to a loss that aired January 17, 2026 on tape delay. Wikipedia says 273 days; the aired endpoints produce 276; the recognized change date is presumably the January 14 taping. Printed, not resolved.
Joe vs. Punk II (October 2004), Unbreakable's triple threat (September 2005) and Joe vs. Kobashi (October 2005) — the stretch that made him the consensus best wrestler in North America without a national television contract.
Held the AEW TNT Championship and ROH World Television Championship simultaneously in 2022-23, the ROH reign a record for that title per Wikipedia — exact dates not re-verified in this pass.
January 2022 — announced days before WWE released him for the second time, a sequence his biographies note without comment.
Deliberately absent: a career win-loss total (none verified across 26 years and five promotions); social handles (unverified); his AEW contract status (unaddressed by any coverage found — the hiatus is reported as a planned filming break and nothing more is claimed); and any assertion that he appeared at All In: London, because the August 30, 2026 results show he did not, whatever the teases suggested. US title and TNT/ROH TV reign dates are hedged in the titles table rather than guessed.
Follow, connect and verify.
He is on a planned filming hiatus, announced on the May 27, 2026 Dynamite — shooting Twisted Metal, in which he plays Sweet Tooth, in Toronto from June 15 to an August 26 wrap, per Wrestling Inc. It is not a departure: the absence was written into AEW television, with Hook leading The Opps in his place. He teased returning at All In: London — “time will tell” — but the August 30, 2026 results contain no Samoa Joe appearance. His contract status is unaddressed in any coverage found for this page, and his last match remains the May 24 Owen Hart Cup loss to Will Ospreay at Double or Nothing.
Yes — Wikipedia states it outright. The set: the ROH World Championship won March 22, 2003 and held a record 645 days; the TNA World Heavyweight Championship won from Kurt Angle inside the Lockdown cage on April 13, 2008, held 182 days; and the AEW World Championship won from MJF at Worlds End on December 30, 2023, then won a second time from Hangman Page at Full Gear on November 22, 2025. Add a record three NXT Championships in WWE and he has held the top title of four different companies.
Won in a steel cage at Full Gear on November 22, 2025 in Newark: Hook — ostensibly estranged, actually loyal — blasted champion Hangman Page with the title belt, Joe finished the job, and commentary framed it as Hook having been with The Opps all along. Swerve Strickland returned on the stage minutes later. The reign lasted 35 days: MJF beat him at Worlds End on December 27, taking back the title Joe had originally taken from him at Worlds End two years earlier.
By the record, a three-way tie at five stars: the sixty-minute draw with CM Punk on October 16, 2004 — the second match of the ROH trilogy; the dream match with Kenta Kobashi on October 1, 2005, which won Match of the Year; and TNA’s Unbreakable triple threat with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels on September 11, 2005, the first five-star match in that promotion’s history. Three matches inside thirteen months, in two promotions, none of them on national television when they happened.
Samoa Joe plays the body of Sweet Tooth, the series’ murderous clown, and yes — the absences are the show’s. AEW has written his Twisted Metal filming blocks into its television repeatedly, with the 2026 block — June 15 to August 26 in Toronto — handled by putting Hook in charge of The Opps on screen. His screen work goes further: the voice of King Shark in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the antagonist Raymond Law in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.