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Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal Are Set To Go Full Circle In ROH 18 Years Later

The world was a different place in 2004. Slipknot broke out, releasing the Subliminal Verses, highlighted by their signature track Duality. The Bing’s moved out of their New York apartment, officially ending one of the most iconic sitcoms in the history of television. It was the same summer that The St. Pete Times Forum, now known simply as Amalie, went into hysteria as Ruslan Fedotenko scored twice to clinch the first of now-three Lightning Stanley Cup trophies. Patches O’Houlihan taught us to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge, while Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was the best-selling book in the nation. John Kerry was the Democratic nominee for the Presidential seat, Pepsi Vanilla was just finding its way onto shelves in grocery stores everywhere, Bridget Jones was on the Edge of a Reason and in the world of professional wrestling, Samoa Joe was on a quest of 645 days worth of history while a young and hungry Jay Lethal was captivating audiences as Hydro.

Long before Jay Lethal had 41 successful championship defenses as ROH World Champion, the most of any competitor to have the honor to carry the championship, Samoa Joe was etching his name in the anoles of Ring of Honor, setting the record for the longest World Championship reign that still stands to this day, as the Pennsylvania-based territory continued to transform an otherwise stagnant industry. In an era where WWE had already, more or less, monopolized the zany world of what they tabbed ‘sports entertainment,’ Ring of Honor had spent two years re-constructing the sport of pro wrestling on the shoulders of performers such as Xavier, AJ Styles, Paul London, Michael Shane, CM Punk and the Backseat Boyz. Their biggest star, though, was Samoa Joe, a man who diversified the Ring of Honor roster. He was a machine, a killer, an assassin. Samoa Joe personified everything Ring of Honor exemplified. ROH was a group of miscasts that didn’t fit the traditional mold of an idealized world in the business. Samoa Joe didn’t look like a professional wrestler and he didn’t work a traditional western style, but what he did present was something authentic that audiences across the Eastern Seaboard could gravitate toward. He rampaged his way through the ranks, defeating EZ Money, BJ Whitmer and Homicide in just his ninth ROH match to become the number one contender to then-champion Xavier. Fans learned to Expect the Unexpected early with Samoa Joe, leading to a Night of Champions in Philadelphia where Samoa Joe defeated Xavier in just his tenth ROH contest. Throughout 2004, Samoa Joe left audiences in astonishment as his series of matches with CM Punk made the promotion viable, even garnering the first five-star match in North America from the Wrestling Observer since Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker in 1997 with Punk vs Joe II, as the two men went to an hour Broadway.

Meanwhile, Special K brought in their newest member: Hydro. A 19-year-old Hydro garnered a scant amount of success, but it was a match with CM Punk at Survival of the Fittest 2004 that opened quite a few eyes, and as Hydro adhered to the Code of Honor, a new chapter in the book: a Lethal chapter. Jay Lethal was a ring name already established in independent federations such as Jersey All Pro, but had yet to be familiarized with the ROH audience until Joe told Lethal he needed a more serious name. Perhaps, Joe was spot on. A one-dimensional name as ‘Hydro’ works as a novelty but is a name that one probably wouldn’t be able to get much mileage out of. From there, Joe took on more of a mentorship, with a hands-on approach, with Lethal. The night of what many consider to be the crowning match of Ring of Honor, Joe vs. Punk II, Lethal picked up his biggest win to date over Delirious. The duo teamed for the first time in November of 2004, and picked up their first win as a team at Back to the Basics 2005 over CM Punk and Spanky to become number one contenders to the ROH Tag Team Championships as Lethal pinned the now-ROH Hall of Famer with help from a debuting Stevie Richards. If you’re as confused reading that last part as I was typing it, don’t worry if you don’t remember a 2005 Stevie Richards Ring of Honor run. He was still under WWE contract, primarily working Stevie Night Heat, and had never interacted with any of these four men previously. While he worked with Punk a little bit in WWE ECW just about a year and a half later, he wouldn’t make another ROH appearance until he brawled with none other than Jay Lethal in 2015. It’s as random as you’d think. You can see the match here. 

The lethal combination lost their championship opportunity to Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer, but over the course of their tag team, Lethal secured singles glory as he defeated John Walters in March of 2005 for the ROH Pure Championship, becoming only the fourth wrestler to hold the coveted prize. Just three defenses in, however, Jay Lethal lost the gold to his mentor Samoa Joe at Manhattan Mayhem 2005. Lethal and Joe pulled double duty, however, as Low Ki pinned Lethal and the Rottweiler’s defeated Lethal and Joe in the evening’s main event. Joe seemingly injures his arm going through a table in the match. This match had a handful of issues at play, most notably heat between Low Ki and Lethal. You can see highlights of Lethal and Joe’s first one-on-one meeting below.

Lethal was put on the shelf for approximately a month due to a neck injury, but promptly returned and began a program with Low Ki. Lethal began putting together a collection of singles classics, including a match with CM Punk during the Summer of Punk, headlining Sign of Dishonor. The two would team up again as their feuds with Homicide and Low Ki brought them back together, including the now-legendary post-match brawl at ROH Punk: The Final Chapter, culminating months of emotional turmoil for the four men in a near-eight minute maylay after the opposition intentionally got disqualified. The brawl begins at the 18:30 timestamp.

Ultimately, Low Ki defeated Jay Lethal in a Fight Without Honor at Glory By Honor IV, closing this sub-story in the overall book of the Lethal and Joe saga. Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal wanted to once again test each other, leading to an ‘exhibition bout’ at Steel Cage Warfare. Of course, in professional wrestling, exhibition competition’s are nearly non-existent. After a third of an hour of a seesaw matchup, Jay Lethal capitalizes on Samoa Joe’s knee. Jay resorted to tactics such as using a chair. Their final ROH match was at the Fourth Anniversary Show, yet it feeled rather rushed. The feud was just beginning to show animosity between the two and ROH blew it off in two months, without a gimmick match, essentially the antithesis of a Ring of Honor feud during this era. Jay Lethal had signed with TNA and would be leaving Ring of Honor right as the proverbial plane was taking off from the runway. The two would work together in Impact, including Samoa Joe ending Jay Lethal’s reign as X-Division Champion in 2007, but they never circled back around to their history in other companies until just recently. 

While Samoa Joe was in WWE, winning NXT Championships, United States Championships and announcing the biggest event of the year in a poncho at Raymond James Stadium, Jay Lethal had gone back to where it all began: Ring of Honor. This time he did become the face of the company, as he became a multi-time World Champion, multi-time ROH Television Champion and won the Tag Championships with Jonathan Gresham. Lethal was the third superstar to become Grand Slam Champion in ROH, joining only Christopher Daniels and Matt Taven with the distinction.

As Samoa Joe’s tenure in WWE came to an unceremonious halt, ROH went on hiatus due to fiscal dilemmas brought on via the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, all ROH contracted talent became free agents and as talents such as Rok-C signed with WWE and Danhausen signed with AEW, it was only a matter of time before Lethal found a new home. Jay Lethal became All Elite in November 2021 and Samoa Joe wasn’t too far behind. AEW owner Tony Khan bought Ring of Honor in March 2022 and in April, Samoa Joe confronted Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt as they attacked Jonathan Gresham and Lee Moriarty at Supercard of Honor. Samoa Joe defeated Minoru Suzuki on an episode of Dynamite to become ROH Television Champion.

Allow me to set the scene as it is now: Samoa Joe, being attacked by Lethal, Dutt and newcomer Satnam Singh, is angry. The Television Championship needs a challenger at the upcoming Death Before Dishonor extravaganza in Lowell, Massachusetts. As Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal continue to bicker back and forth like it’s 2006, Jay challenged Joe to a match at the event on a recent edition of AEW Rampage. In closing, Satnam Singh looked into the camera and in typical Samoa Joe fashion, spoke directly to Joe, with the simple “Jay is going to kill you” sentiment. Joe has yet to issue a formal response verbally, but AEW announced on the 7/6 edition of Dynamite that the match is confirmed. It seems as though the match will be straight-up, still leaving us without the major blow-off that didn’t happen a decade and a half ago when it would have elicited one of the most electric audiences in ROH history. Regardless, as AEW prepares to usher in a new era of ROH, it’s allowing itself to honor the product’s past with two of its most iconic faces finally locking up on one final occasion in one of the towns it ran on tradition. For that, ROH as we like to remember it will get to live on in nostalgia, at minimum, one more time; allowing the fans that still yearn for what it once was to immerse themselves in arguably the most groundbreaking promotion of the 21st century on this final occasion. “It’s very important to not only me, but when we think of the legacy of Ring of Honor,” long-time owner and current ROH ambassador Carry Silkin shared when reached for comment. “When we think of the legacy of Ring of Honor, and it’s been a long legacy, to have two of the essential originals makes this very special. And although what I’m about to say next can be argued, I feel that both guys are [still] at the top of their game.” Death Before Dishonor emanates from the Tsongas Center on July 23rd and you can order it on pay-per-view. 

As I said in a long-winded opening paragraph, the world was a much different place in 2004. It’s 2022, and we now have platforms such as Twitter and Reddit to help guide our satisfaction in the media we consume. The world is constantly evolving, as streaming has taken precedent and you can’t even go to any type of entertainment show without personalized, hand-held screens all around. The Boston Red Sox and The Chicago Cubs are no longer known as perennial choke artists. In professional wrestling, Ring of Honor played a crucial role in de-monopolizing an industry. Two of those faces, Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal, redefined what professional wrestling is and will be for the future. The grizzled young veteran and the young upstart are now legends in the game and look to have one final, fleeting, legendary match. 

Bodyslam’s Kiley Fuller declared the Joe-Lethal program a feud that “formed the foundation” of Ring of Honor in a recent episode of the Code of Honor podcast where she and co-host Kyle Sparks gave you the shmoop version of their history in a far more concise manner, and in a way that’s easier to keep track of way. Be sure to watch their show every Monday at 3 P.M. EST, I hear they have a neat producer.

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