AEW star Samoa Joe to work rare indie match
AEW star Samoa Joe is set to work a rare indie date this November, where he’ll help send off a friend who is retiring from the ring.
It’s been announced that Joe vs. Navajo Warrior will take place at IZW’s Long Live The King event on Saturday, November 8. It’s the final stop on Navajo Warrior’s retirement tour as he ends his in-ring career.
The show is being held at Bull Shooters in Phoenix, Arizona and is the first indie event that Joe will be competing at since 2015.
Navajo Warrior (Steve Islas) is a wrestler and strongman competitor who founded the IZW (Impact Zone Wrestling) promotion. His longtime career in wrestling has also included working occasional enhancement and dark matches for WWE in the 1990s and 2000s, along with working in Japan for Zero1 Wrestling.
Before using Navajo Warrior as his name, Islas was known as The Navajo Kid.
Joe is a Trios Champion in AEW, holding the titles with Katsuyori Shibata & Powerhouse Hobbs. He recently returned to AEW programming following a month-long absence where he was briefly written off TV to promote his role as Sweet Tooth in season two of Peacock’s “Twisted Metal” series.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.