WWE's Samoa Joe has a lot on his plate right now. Aside from wrestling on the Tuesday night show Smackdown Live, he's voicing Predaking in the Machinima series Transformers: Power of the Primes, and he's getting ready to check out what this year's E3 has to offer. It's no secret that Joe loves video gaming. At last year's E3, he and Xavier Woods hung out with GameSpot and played the latest Call of Duty game, which you can see above. However, in 2018, there is a new battle on the horizon: Fortnite or PUBG?
While promoting his work for Power of the Primes, Joe got straight to the point. He's primarily a PUBG player: "I know [PUBG is] probably not the most popular thing, but I like both," Joe told GameSpot. "Fortnight's Battle Royale Mode is fun, but I am little bit more... I like my shooters kind of grounded, touch more reality for, you know, as real that wacky situation is, but yeah, I think PUBG at this point. Though it does go back and forth, I do play enough Fortnight: Battle Royale that it's a pretty neck and neck competition."
Those aren't only the things in gaming Joe is excited about. He's looking forward to what will be happening at this year's E3, taking place June 12-14 in Los Angeles, and what he's most anticipating is advancements in AR and VR: "I am really anxious to look at the augmented reality stuff from Microsoft. And I mean, you know most of the blockbuster games that are kind of in the works. I'm definitely more interested in the VR stuff. I've been doing a lot and digging it, so I'm kind of always looking to the next frontier, so I'm interested to see what gets debuted or what's get shown and proved this year.
"I just want to see somebody who kind of gets the experience right. I think it's such a wide open platform as far as like how you can interpret it as a game; I'm looking for that. I feel like there's this game that's going to come through that's going to blow everybody's mind as far as like, 'Wow, why didn't I think of that type of application of VR?' I think that's what I'm most excited about when I think about things in the future. You know somebody's going to get the formula just right, and I'm sure it will be copied vastly across the industry. I think it's on the cusp, but it's on the cusp of kind of busting out and being the next evolution of gaming, and I'm interested to see what, you know, who or what genius pulls something out of their hat and makes everybody go, 'Wow.'"
Joe continues to do voiceover work in his spare time. In the past, he's done work for Telltale's Game of Thrones and more recently, did a voice in Dota 2. Now, he's playing Predaking for Machinima's Transformers: Power of the Primes--you can watch the first episode of it here. "It was kinda a natural fit. After I sat down and talked with the producers about what they were looking for, they said they wanted something, obviously it's a robot, but they wanted it to have a real animalistic feel and to have kind of a terrifying edge to his voice. Most of the voices that I end up doing do kind of have an edge of over exaggeration and a little bit more intensity, and you know, the kind of a visceralness of it is a little bit punched up, so that was definitely something they wanted in this character, so I would say it's more me amplified than anything else."
Transformers was a big part of Joe's childhood, like many children of the '80s. He watched the show every morning before school at 7:00 AM. If there were an opportunity to voice other reboots or remakes for other '80s shows, Joe mentioned G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, and Thundercats: "I think I could pull off a Mumm-Ra. As long as I get to keep the dog that would be cool," Joe joked.
On Sunday, May 6, Joe will perform at the WWE event Backlash where he will take on Raw superstar Roman Reigns, and we're confident he'll beat Reigns. Will Joe be able to beat Reigns so bad he'll be forced to retire out of shame? "I mean that's the plan, you know?" explained Joe. "The shame part's hard 'cause I don't think he has any, so you got to obviously beat that in to him, and then hopefully, after that process is done, I will have ended him and hopefully, when I end people, it won't be like how he ended The Undertaker. I'm feeling pretty confident about my chances."
Now on Smackdown, Joe has a whole new field of other wrestlers he has yet to take on in WWE. Some of the names he mentioned on his wish list to fight in the ring were AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, and Randy Orton, but overall, he seems excited about the new opportunities. Obviously, he has his sights set on the WWE Championship in the future as he wants to aim high, but Joe walking around WWE with two titles at once, like with the WWE Championship and the United States or Smackdown Tag Team Championships, isn't out of the question. "I think the world's ready for it," explained Joe. "I know I am, and I can sense your voice on the other side of this line that your body's ready for it so [laughing] yeah man, I'm definitely looking to do it."
My body is ready. Make it happen.
More recently, Samoa Joe discussed how he cuts his segments on television. "I'm trying to make you understand how I feel. And, most of the time, it's I'm very angry or disgusted with somebody I'm having to deal with," Joe said to PopCulture. "I want you to be able to turn the mute button on the television, and when you see my face, and when you see me saying something, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And it's a simple principle."
