9 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw Reunion

3. Joe Jobs Again

Roman Reigns Samoa Joe
WWE.com

This writer isn’t delusional enough to think that Samoa Joe should be holding the WWE Universal Championship right now, but it’s been a rough month for the Samoan Submission Machine.

Joe lost his United States Championship to Ricochet at Stomping Grounds last month (after losing it the month prior to Rey Mysterio). He then lost a WWE World Championship match against Kofi Kingston last week. And then he lost cleanly to Roman Reigns Monday night.

That’s a really bad run for a guy who’s such a smooth-talking bada** heel. He could easily be a solid midcard to upper-card villain, but yet he keeps losing matches like this. Why job him out to Roman cleanly like this? This could have ended in a DQ or a schmozz, maybe with Joe eating a spear and rolling outside, then opting to take the countout rather than get back inside.

Every time it feels like they might use Joe as a featured player, he gets thrust back into his supporting role.

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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.