7 Ups And 10 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2019

4. Joe Goes Over Strong

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It took WWE long enough to make Samoa Joe a champion, but thankfully, they’ve also managed to book him as a no-nonsense champ.

Even as a heel, Joe clearly fears no one, signing a petition to grant R-Truth a United States Championship rematch. He then defended the title in a fatal four-way match at Fastlane, defeating Rey Mysterio by making him pass out to the Coquina Clutch. Joe hung tough with all three of his opponents and won cleanly – he didn’t even have to steal a pin or attack a wounded Rey that someone else had stunned.

It was good to see Joe win a pretty good match where everyone was clicking. It would have been better to just have booked this match from the get-go rather than do the kickoff show angle and change a singles match between Rey and Andrade at the last minute. But still, bravo.

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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.