12 Ups And 15 Downs For WWE In 2017 (2nd Opinion)

3. Samoa Joe

samoa joe promo
WWE.com

Few wrestlers accomplished more in 2017 without winning any titles than Samoa Joe.

In just 11 months (two of which were spent on the shelf), Joe has beaten Roman Reigns and taken the fight directly to Brock Lesnar. He’s targeted the entire Shield with a vendetta. In between it all, Joe has been a force on Raw throughout the entire year. Fans buy him as a top guy and wouldn’t flinch if he won the Universal Championship in 2018.

Joe’s presence on Raw has been a near-constant positive for WWE, as he’s widely accepted as a tough guy who can talk, wrestle and intimidate with the best of them. It might have taken Joe a long time to get to WWE, but he made the company and fans happy he got here.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.