Huge announcement made on AEW star Samoa Joe; 10 year wait finally ends

Reigning AEW Trios Champion Samoa Joe is finally making his return to the independent circuit. The veteran was in action recently at the Tony Khan-led promotion's latest pay-per-view.

This past weekend on Saturday Night Collision, Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney, and Robbie X issued a challenge to Joe, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Katsuyori Shibata, inviting them to defend their AEW World Trios Championships against them at Forbidden Door 2025. The Opps battled the Bullet Club War Dogs members with their belts on the line during the Zero Hour pre-show prior to the PPV's main card, retaining their titles after The Samoan Submission Machine planted Robbie with a Muscle Buster.

Following on the heels of his victory alongside his teammates at Forbidden Door, it has been announced that Samoa Joe will be returning to the independent circuit for the first time since 2015 later this year. The former AEW World Champion is set to compete against Navajo Warrior in the latter's retirement match at IZW Long Live The King on November 8.

"Witness the final stop along the Navajo Warrior Retirement Tour when Samoa Joe comes to IZW to battle the legendary Navajo Warrior in his official retirement match! [Crown emoji] IZW LONG LIVE THE KING [Crown emoji] Samoa Joe vs. The Navajo Warrior The Last Mile Comes To An End," noted IZW's announcement.

Check out the promotion's official post on Facebook BELOW:

Joe has not wrestled on the indies since 2015, as he joined WWE that year, and continued to perform for the sports entertainment juggernaut until he was released for a second time towards the beginning of 2022.

Match results for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door

All Elite Wrestling staged this year's iteration of its annual pay-per-view, Forbidden Door, in the O2 Arena in London, England. The main card for the show presented a total of nine high-stakes matches, including quite a few title bouts, the results of which have been summarized below:

Adam Copeland and Christian Cage defeated Killswitch and Kip Sabian
Kyle Fletcher (c) defeated Hiromu Takahashi [TNT Championship Match]
Mercedes Mone (c) defeated Alex Windsor, Persephone, and Bozilla [TBS Championship Match]
Zack Sabre Jr. (c) defeated Nigel McGuinness [IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Match]
Brodido defeated The Hurt Syndicate (c) (Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin) and FTR [World Tag Team Championship Three-Way Elimination Match]
Kazuchika Okada (c) defeated Swerve Strickland [Unified Championship Match]
Toni Storm (c) defeated Athena [AEW Women's World Championship Match]
Hangman Adam Page defeated MJF [AEW Men's World Championship Match]
Darby Allin, Will Ospreay, The Golden Lovers, and Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated The Death Riders, The Young Bucks, and Gabe Kidd

Poster for Forbidden Door 2025 [Image Credits: AEW's website (allelitewrestling.com)]

Forbidden Door 2025 was also attended by over 18,000 people, making it one of the promotion's most successful international events so far.

About the author

Anurag is an AEW writer for Sportskeeda Wrestling. He holds a BA and MA degree in English along with a TEFL certification to teach English. Before Sportskeeda, he worked as a Content and Correspondence writer at Nayabad Titas, a theater group. He has also worked as a English language tutor.

To ensure complete accuracy, he uses internet resources, social media platforms, and especially pieces composed by his peers to find solid, verified information that he presents as objectively as possible. Thanks to his academic background, he can research different subjects thoroughly.

Anurag's interest in wrestling began as a child. He watched RAW and Smackdown frequently from age 10 or 11 and was officially hooked by the YES Movement story in WWE heading into WrestleMania 30.

As a lifelong wrestling fan and lover of stories, Anurag would read news, articles, and other content about the talent and events he enjoyed watching. His understanding of the business continued to grow with time, and his interest in the art and sport of wrestling led him to pursue a career as a writer.

Apart from writing, he loves to read books, watch movies and television programs, play and listen to music, and write poetry and fiction.

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Edited by Anurag Mukherjee