Yesterday, we reported that Samoa Joe was set to face John Cena at RAW. When that didn’t happen, it left us scratching our heads. We now know why Joe was absent from last night’s show.
According to PWInsider, Samoa Joe suffered a knee injury at a live event in Jonesboro, Arkansas in a match with John Cena over the weekend. WWE has yet to officially acknowledge the injury but early reports have him missing a minimum of four weeks.
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Based on this information, we can expect Joe to miss the No Mercy PPV as well. His injury may have caused WWE to shift significantly as he was rumored to be facing John Cena at the September show. As mentioned above the two competitors have been working with each other at live events to build chemistry. Joe’s untimely injury may have caused WWE to pull the trigger on Cena and Roman Reigns earlier than they had planned.
It was rumored that Reigns was set the challenge The Miz for his Intercontinental Championship, which would have allowed Reigns to become a Grand Slam Champion. Instead, WWE hosted a Battle Royal to find The Miz’s challenger. This too gave us a surprise as Jeff Hardy emerged as the victor.
A series of unlikely circumstances signify that Joe’s injury serves a catalyst for change across WWE’s card. Instead of Cena and Reigns holding off until WrestleMania, WWE decided to make an aggressive move to have them co-headline No Mercy with Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman.
If this is indeed the case, it proves to be quite the blow to WWE and Samoa Joe. Since being folded into WWE’s upper-mid card after WrestleMania, Joe has arguably been RAW’s MVP. After a feud with Brock Lesnar that surpassed the highest of expectations, Samoa Joe became a player in WWE. So much so, it was said that Paul Heyman was lobbying for Joe to leave SummerSlam as the Universal Champion.
This report is still early and WWE has yet to take it public. We will keep you posted as we learn more.
