We’re almost 24 hours onwards from WWE’s hashtag Raw Reunion. It was a show that happened. Fine for what it was, which was a cynical cash and ratings grab. As an actual episode of weekly WWE Programming, of their flagship show, less than three weeks before their second biggest show of the year? It was atrocious. Worse than awful.
Raw Reunion saw the following take place:
•The Club (now renamed The OC, because reasons), armed with steel chairs, running off scared from The Kliq and the rest of DX.
•Sami Zayn running off scared from The fucking Hurricane.
•The Godfather being encouraged to get the entire crowd to shout the phrase “hoe train”, because WWE are all about empowering women in 2019.
•Ted DiBiase literally just buying the 24/7 title off Alundra Blayze (okay this was mildly amusing).
There was loads of other absolute guff that I’ve thankfully already forgotten about. The show was dogshit. But one of the biggest takeaways from Raw Reunion that I haven’t mentioned yet (other than the title of the article, nice try smart arse) is that Samoa Joe lost clean to Roman Reigns in under 6 minutes.
By itself, Samoa Joe losing to Samoan Joe (not a typo) is fine. Everyone loses to Roman Reigns. Even Brock Lesnar loses to Roman Reigns, on the rare occasion Brock Lesnar can be arsed turning up. The problem with Samoa Joe losing to Reigns last night is that... I mean let’s take a look at Joe’s history in big matches since coming up to the main roster. He lost to Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire, and lost again in the fatal four way shortly after. He failed to take the Intercontinental title from Reigns, winning by DQ, then lost his rematch clean. Greatest Royal Rumble? Lost an IC title match. Backlash? Lost to Reigns. He got a WWE Championship program with AJ Styles, in which he lost cleanly twice, and won via DQ once. Elimination Chamber? Lost clean. He then won the United States title, before losing it to Rey Mysterio, getting it back after Rey was shoot injured, and almost immediately losing it again, this time to Ricochet. He then, for no reason whatsoever, got another WWE Championship feud, where he lost clean as a whistle to Kofi Kingston.
It’s worse than just “he loses loads but he’s still meant to be a threat”. Watch any Samoa Joe match you want. If he wins? You’re luckier at picking Joe matches than me. If he loses, which he tends to do, he’ll lose from either a fluke rollup, or a LOL sudden finisher out of nowhere. Every. Single. Time. Every single defeat Joe takes, he’s booked to look like a complete knob. Losing in such a fluke fashion too often, as Joe does, makes him and anyone else booked similarly look incompetent and weak. Again; we’re still meant to take Samoa Joe seriously. We’re expected to believe that he can conceivably defeat Brock Lesnar or Braun Strowman or Kofi Kingston or AJ Styles, but in practice we end up watching him lose via rollup after dominating for 5 minutes, or by getting caught with a finisher from nowhere, every time, as if he’s an overly confident and green rookie.
It’s impossible to take Samoa Joe seriously as a credible threat in WWE any more. Simply put, he loses every time he’s put in a feud of any relevance whatsoever, and he looks incompetent in doing so. WWE have had two years of main roster booking to either shit or get off the pot with Joe, and it’s now past the point he can be saved to rehabilitate him with main event aspirations. It’s a crying shame; he’s over as hell, he’s a brilliant wrestler and he’s genuinely one of the best talkers in modern wrestling history. In literally any other promotion, he’d be the dominant heel multi-time Champion he deserves to be.
Ah well, at least we’ve got Baron Corbin, eh?
Raw Reunion saw the following take place:
•The Club (now renamed The OC, because reasons), armed with steel chairs, running off scared from The Kliq and the rest of DX.
•Sami Zayn running off scared from The fucking Hurricane.
•The Godfather being encouraged to get the entire crowd to shout the phrase “hoe train”, because WWE are all about empowering women in 2019.
•Ted DiBiase literally just buying the 24/7 title off Alundra Blayze (okay this was mildly amusing).
There was loads of other absolute guff that I’ve thankfully already forgotten about. The show was dogshit. But one of the biggest takeaways from Raw Reunion that I haven’t mentioned yet (other than the title of the article, nice try smart arse) is that Samoa Joe lost clean to Roman Reigns in under 6 minutes.
By itself, Samoa Joe losing to Samoan Joe (not a typo) is fine. Everyone loses to Roman Reigns. Even Brock Lesnar loses to Roman Reigns, on the rare occasion Brock Lesnar can be arsed turning up. The problem with Samoa Joe losing to Reigns last night is that... I mean let’s take a look at Joe’s history in big matches since coming up to the main roster. He lost to Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire, and lost again in the fatal four way shortly after. He failed to take the Intercontinental title from Reigns, winning by DQ, then lost his rematch clean. Greatest Royal Rumble? Lost an IC title match. Backlash? Lost to Reigns. He got a WWE Championship program with AJ Styles, in which he lost cleanly twice, and won via DQ once. Elimination Chamber? Lost clean. He then won the United States title, before losing it to Rey Mysterio, getting it back after Rey was shoot injured, and almost immediately losing it again, this time to Ricochet. He then, for no reason whatsoever, got another WWE Championship feud, where he lost clean as a whistle to Kofi Kingston.
Samoa Joe, about to lose via rollup, probably.
See a pattern emerging? Samoa Joe is booked to lose absolutely all the time. And you know what? That would be fine; loads of wrestlers are booked to be losers. Curt Hawkins had briefly literally made himself relevant again because of losing so much. That isn’t the problem; the problem is that despite booking Joe to lose pretty much every single major feud he has, WWE still want to present him as a dominant heel threat; someone who can win a major title at any moment. It’s bizarre. It’s symptomatic of WWE’s “wins and losses don’t matter” attitude towards booking in 2019 in general, but nobody has suffered as badly from this stuff recently as Joe.
It’s worse than just “he loses loads but he’s still meant to be a threat”. Watch any Samoa Joe match you want. If he wins? You’re luckier at picking Joe matches than me. If he loses, which he tends to do, he’ll lose from either a fluke rollup, or a LOL sudden finisher out of nowhere. Every. Single. Time. Every single defeat Joe takes, he’s booked to look like a complete knob. Losing in such a fluke fashion too often, as Joe does, makes him and anyone else booked similarly look incompetent and weak. Again; we’re still meant to take Samoa Joe seriously. We’re expected to believe that he can conceivably defeat Brock Lesnar or Braun Strowman or Kofi Kingston or AJ Styles, but in practice we end up watching him lose via rollup after dominating for 5 minutes, or by getting caught with a finisher from nowhere, every time, as if he’s an overly confident and green rookie.
It’s impossible to take Samoa Joe seriously as a credible threat in WWE any more. Simply put, he loses every time he’s put in a feud of any relevance whatsoever, and he looks incompetent in doing so. WWE have had two years of main roster booking to either shit or get off the pot with Joe, and it’s now past the point he can be saved to rehabilitate him with main event aspirations. It’s a crying shame; he’s over as hell, he’s a brilliant wrestler and he’s genuinely one of the best talkers in modern wrestling history. In literally any other promotion, he’d be the dominant heel multi-time Champion he deserves to be.
Ah well, at least we’ve got Baron Corbin, eh?
Comments
Post a Comment