Samoa Joe has responded to rumors that he broke his tailbone during a 2008 TNA match with Sting, who currently works for AEW. Vince McMahon ‘Regrets’ Samoa Joe Release?
Joe tweeted about a Reddit thread, “Nope, in fact I didn’t miss a day of work. I have refrained commenting on this because I have enjoyed how the legend grew over the years & it been somewhat of a social experiment for me watching it manifest as such a absolute truth. Person did his homework. Myth busted.”
He added, “Also it was never suppose to be what it was in the chaos of the crowd Sting was moved down the steps and what was supposed to be a cool slightly dangerous flying forearm had to be audibled into that mid air much to my surprise.”
Bookerman32 had posted on the Squared Circle Reddit: Samoa Joe’s Tailbone Injury: Did it actually happen? Okay, this title sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy, but I’ve gone down a rabbit hole actually finding anything confirming this so…
At TNA Bound For Glory 2008, Samoa Joe fought Sting in the main event. In a now infamously foolish spot, Samoa Joe performed a running dropkick landing on the steps in the crowd. This bump was devastating on Joe, his tailbone was broken, he was four inches away from losing a testicle, and it forever negatively affected his in-ring work. This bump and the injury that ensued from it forever changed Joe as a wrestler, and opened him up to further injury problems that would forever plague the rest of his career.
… Or did it?
If you were to ask the internet, it’s accepted fact. In a recent front page post regarding Joe, the top comment lamented the fact that he performed this bump, later explaining that it resultant in the injuries mentioned above. On WhatCulture’s recent listicle “10 Devastating Injuries That Made Wrestlers WORSE”, Joe’s tailbone injury suffered here was named #1, reaffirming the belief that Joe broke his tailbone here and was never the same after. So, it’s a well established and widespread fact about Joe’s career… this moment caused him to break his tailbone, ruined his body, and he was never the same since.
r/SquaredCircle – Samoa Joe’s Tailbone Injury: Did it actually happen?
Another top comment from a youtube video of the bump, referring to it as “famous” and the cause of him losing years of his career
However, there’s one problem. Try as I might, I cannot find a single source from anywhere that actually backs this up. No confirmation, no statement from Joe, no report of any injury at the time or after. More bafflingly, the idea that Joe was badly injured here doesn’t hold up looking at any evidence. Joe finished the match without issue, took zero injury time off in the weeks that followed this bout, and even continued to work TNA house shows. Not the work record of a man who apparently suffered a tailbone fracture so sever that it would take years off his career.
So where did this supposed fact come from, and how did it become so widespread? The top comment from a post on this spot two years ago stated this a fact, but when the commenter was pressed for a source, they did not respond. Another comment on the thread stated that Joe himself called this spot the dumbest thing he had done, and that it caused him to re-evaluate his style, but this poster also provides zero source when asked. A thread from Four years ago is filled with comments about how stupid the bump was, but not a single one mentioned this apparent injury. So the belief must have started after this. Another thread from six months back is filled with comments stating that Joe shattered his tailbone and was never the same after this… but again, absolutely zero source on where this information came from. This chain from three years ago is the earliest mention of this fact on Reddit I can find, but the evidence given is purely a subjective “I feel like he wasn’t the same after” case. One person however does finally provide a link to some kind of article.
An article from David Bixenspan in 2017 which… uhh, clarifies nothing. It’s entirely an opinion piece, and actually gives no mention of any kind of injury, only a subjective and vague view that he slowed down after, before going in to talking about his poor booking after that day.
My rabbit hole search attempting to find just… anything to confirm or even back up which has become common internet truth that seems to be brought up in every single thread about Samoa Joe came to a dead end with this 2015 F4W article, and… it’s more of the same from the Bix article. An opinion column, that makes no mention of any injury occurring, but it is the earliest case I could find of someone stating that Joe was changed specifically by that bump. However, that statement is not quantified in any way, just a vague statement that is immediately followed by commenting on his booking after that bump, not his physical health.
So, this is part PSA, part request. Can anyone find any actual source on this “famous injury” ever actually occurring? Did this bump actually ruin his body? Did it break his tailbone, and all sources confirming it have just been unfortunately buried with time? Or has a random reddit user’s opinion somehow spun off into a widespread and widely accepted piece of information that has hung over every conversation about Joe’s career for literal years at this point?
Is this true? Is it not? Can anyone find anything to confirm this? Please, I have fallen deep into this hole and have lost my mind trying to confirm it.
