Samoa Joe returns to Ring of Honor in March

Last week, Samoa Joe's announcement that he had decided to part ways with TNA after almost a decade with the company left everyone gossiping about what his next move would be.

There was immediate speculation that he might be ready to retire from wrestling to focus on his outside business interests, but Joe officially squashed those rumours in last week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, telling Dave Meltzer that he had no such plans to retire and had, in fact, been inundated with interest from other wrestling groups:

"Plans for the future are tentative to say the least. The rumors of me leaving wrestling are very false, based on assumptions because I’ve spent the past five years building a solid property rental business. The reasons for my departure are varied and a laundry list. I wish no ill will toward TNA, just sometimes you need a change of scenery.

I’ll be spending the next few days combing through the offers put before me, which I’m both a bit surprised and thankful for."

So the question then became who would sign Samoa Joe first? There were rumours that Triple H was interested in signing him for NXT, but his age, physique and lengthy tenure with TNA would usually preclude such a signing. Given his physical in-ring style, Japan seemed a much better fit for him, which he could supplement by working for independent companies around the world and also Ring of Honor, where he first made his name in the United States.

Well, it's now official, Samoa Joe will be returning to ROH at their national TV tapings in Baltimore, MD, on Mar. 7th, 2015, and he'll also be appearing on their house shows later that month in Milwaukee, WI, Chicago Ridge, IL, and Redwood City, CA. The company announced the news earlier today by publishing the following video entitled "An ROH Legend is coming home..." on their official YouTube page:

The news comes as little surprise, because in an interview with Dave Meltzer yesterday the company's COO Joe Koff openly talked about how much he would love to bring back Samoa Joe into the ROH fold:

"Well, I would be crazy to say we wouldn't want to have him, because we would. He represents Ring of Honor, he is Ring of Honor, and I think that we like having guys that have been in Ring of Honor originally coming back to us. I think they're good for the fans, they're good for the business. He just made that announcement last week, I really believe that he's sorting out what to do and I think he has a lot of options, but I think if he would talk to someone like AJ Styles he would find that Ring of Honor would be a really nice place to work in conjunction with other things he might want to be doing. We would love to have him back."

Certainly, Ring of Honor needs to be credited with striking while the iron is hot by nabbing Samoa Joe's first major dates outside of TNA. Are you excited, Cagesiders, for his first appearances with ROH in over six years?