Samoa Joe is a 300-pound Samoan wrestler who wears shorts, has a sizable paunch and doesn't necessarily look like a legendary world beater. For as much as announcers can tell us that Joe's great, wrestling is a visual business. Thus, while they did the same thing in setting up the ill-fated Baron Corbin vs. Bull Dempsey feud, Joe should literally be the "Samoan Submission Machine" and be mowing down opponents in less than five minutes via the Kokina Clutch. Of course, Joe's known for having long and epic main event matches, but when those matches were in TNA and ROH, a vast preponderance of the WWE Universe has likely heard about those matches, but likely never sat through them. As well, key to Joe's excellence is that there's a vast size differential between Joe and his best opponents. Therefore, the long match that Joe had with Kevin Owens? Maybe not the best idea. In all actuality, Joe should be built up considerably during these shorter matches to the point where for WWE's purposes fans get the idea that he's a threat within their own company.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
