5 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2017

2. Joe The Destroyer

Samoa Joe Sami Zayn
WWE.com

There really shouldn’t have been much doubt about the outcome of Samoa Joe’s first WWE PPV match Sunday night. Joe came in as a hot commodity and really could not have lost that bout.

What was in question was how competitive Joe’s match with Sami Zayn would be. And as it turned out, it wasn’t really an even match. Joe dominated much of the bout, countering some of Sami’s best moves and shrugging off some of his attacks. He turned a Helluva Kick into a uranage suplex and then went right into the Kokina Clutch for the convincing victory.

While this column is big on Zayn, there was no reason for him to push Joe to the limit at this stage. The Samoan Submission Machine needs to run roughshod right now, and that’s exactly what he did Sunday night.

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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.