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In July, Samoa Joe was announced as AJ Styles' SummerSlam challenger. He's taken the ball and run with it so far without a single stumble. Heading into Brooklyn, Samoa Joe was on fire, and many people wanted to see him emerge as the WWE Champion once the summer's biggest show was all said and done.
Samoa Joe actually won his match at SummerSlam, but only by disqualification. AJ Styles retained his WWE Championship, but for the first time in his lengthy reign, it was done in screwy fashion. The two will now go to war again at Hell in a Cell on September 16th.
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Samoa Joe deserves to walk out of that event the WWE Champion. Here's why.
#1 He's outperforming AJ Styles in every segment
The AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe feud has been the best on the main roster all year. After nearly two-thirds of the year came and went without a notable feud, the floundering main roster finally got one. While the placement of the segments has sometimes been a problem, each one has felt different and intense, and the match at SummerSlam was the best on the card.
While AJ Styles has played the aggrieved family man well, and he showed up in a major way at SummerSlam in delivering his best match of the year so far, the success of the feud has been mostly thanks to Samoa Joe.
Samoa Joe has played psychological warfare to perfection in his feud with AJ Styles, and in the match itself, he had his own best main roster performance to date.
Simply put, when people are talking about this feud, they're mostly talking about Samoa Joe, not AJ Styles. Just based on the merits of their performances, Samoa Joe deserves to win the title and the feud.
#2 AJ Styles' reign has gotten long in the tooth
While the WWE Universe will be forever grateful to AJ Styles for liberating the WWE Championship from Jinder Mahal, that was last November. His reign got off to a great start with a program with Brock Lesnar, but between then and the current feud with Samoa Joe, it hasn't delivered in the way that his first reign did.
Styles' program with Shinsuke Nakamura proved disappointing, even accounting for the bad booking that went into it. Once that feud was over, a filler program with Rusev ensued.
AJ Styles has also been puzzlingly placed on cards, both on TV and pay per view. The placement has often made him and his title feel like an afterthought. It's time to shake things up.
Looking beyond Samoa Joe, AJ Styles could still indeed have intriguing feuds with The Miz and Randy Orton, but as good as the latter has been, few want to see him get another world title reign. The Miz has a lot to add, but it doesn't feel like his time just yet.
No male superstar is hotter on SmackDown than Samoa Joe right now, and even if his reign winds up being short, he deserves the WWE Championship.
#3 Samoa Joe makes everything feel important
Samoa Joe's feud with Brock Lesnar was one of the only times during the latter's 500-day reign that the Universal title felt like it mattered. Joe has proven his worth again with AJ Styles. It's thanks to him that the WWE Championship has felt more important than it has since Styles dropped the title for the first time, and that's despite the inconsistent card placement.
Samoa Joe is one of those rare performers that's bulletproof to WWE's normally terrible writing. That's just how good he is. Even when it appears that Randy Orton vs. Jeff Hardy will get inside Hell in a Cell while the WWE Championship match won't, Samoa Joe still somehow manages to make the title fight feel more important.
The championship badly needs a Samoa Joe title reign. He can reinvigorate the title's credibility, and no one wouldn't welcome feuds with Jeff Hardy, Daniel Bryan, or just maybe, Aleister Black whenever he makes his main roster debut.
While it's likelier at this point that the title will eventually find its way into the Miz vs. Bryan feud, Joe has been hotter, and him holding it would make for an even better choice. There's a lot of ground to cover between Joe and Bryan, after all.
