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Samoa Joe faces top RAW Superstar Roman Reigns in a grudge match at this weekend’s WWE Backlash PPV.
It was on this week’s SmackDown Live episode—the go-home show for Backlash—that Joe issued a rather ominous threat, stating that the Samoan Submission Machine is indeed ready to pursue the WWE Championship.
As part of WWE’s recent Superstar Shake-Up, Joe was drafted from the RAW to the SmackDown brand, however, WWE have strongly indicated that Joe will indeed tend to his unfinished business on RAW against Roman Reigns—before the former heads to the blue brand.
Intriguingly, while laying out his plans this week on SmackDown Live—speaking about how he’s going to defeat Reigns—Joe warned reigning WWE Champion AJ Styles that he’s coming after the winner of the upcoming WWE Championship Match between Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura.
We believe that Joe is indeed next in line to challenge for the WWE Championship; that is after Styles and Nakamura end their feud at Backlash this Sunday.
However, before Joe enters the WWE Championship picture, The Samoan Submission Machine does battle with The Big Dog—with their matchup also scheduled to take place at the aforementioned Backlash pay-per-view.
The belief is that Joe is likely to lose his much-talked-about grudge match against Reigns at Backlash—following which, Joe will then enter his first WWE Championship feud since having signed with WWE.
Furthermore, something that seems to have captivated the attention of the professional wrestling community is the fact that Joe’s potential loss to Reigns, will have a butterfly effect on the current WWE Champion AJ Styles, No.1 contender Nakamura as well as the prestigious WWE Championship.
While Reigns is primed to benefit off a huge victory over Joe, the latter will then enter a feud with Styles for the WWE Championship.
This, in turn, implies that Nakamura is likely to fail in his bid to defeat Styles for the WWE Championship…again.
Nevertheless, a feud between Joe and Styles on WWE television programming, with the WWE Championship at stake nonetheless, is a statement that intrigues not only the hardcore pro-wrestling fan but also the causal viewer—as evidenced by the raucous fan-reaction to Joe & Styles’ segment on SmackDown Live this past Tuesday night.
WWE Backlash is set to take place at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Sunday, May 6th.
