Tony Khan Explains Having Samoa Joe Focus On AEW, Relinquish ROH TV Title

Last month, Samoa Joe vacated the ROH World Television Championship to focus his attention on climbing to the top of the mountain in AEW. Joe is now set to challenge MJF for the AEW World Championship at the inaugural AEW Worlds End pay-per-view on December 30. Ahead of ROH's Final Battle event this weekend, AEW founder and ROH owner Tony Khan was asked about Joe dropping the ROH TV belt.

"I do think it made a lot of sense for him to be a focus because he is such a huge star for AEW," Khan said during the Final Battle media call. "There's a lot of commercial benefits to having a huge star of Samoa Joe's stature on AEW television every week. It felt like, as big as Samoa Joe's presence on AEW has become, it become challenging for him to defend the [ROH TV] championship, so relinquishing at that point, I think, did make some sense."

Joe — who held the ROH World Television Championship for a record-setting 574 days — was granted a world title shot by MJF after helping "The Salt of the Earth" retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship on the AEW Full Gear pre-show last month. Joe offered to stand in for the injured Adam Cole in exchange for a shot at MJF's belt. It will be Joe's second chance at winning the AEW World Championship after unsuccessfully challenging MJF for the title at "AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam" in September.