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What's the story?
On SmackDown Live, Samoa Joe has been a violent, domineering, monster that has put many of the Blue Brand's top talents to sleep. AJ Styles, Ali, even WWE Champion Kofi Kingston has fallen to the United States Champion.
And tonight, the Samoan Submission Machine has set his sights on the Universal Champion.
In case you didn't know...
Since moving to SmackDown in 2018, Samoa Joe has nearly dominated Tuesday nights. He's gone head-to-head with AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Jeff Hardy, and Rey Mysterio.
And while he may not have won the WWE Championship, he managed to put all of those legends to sleep with ease. An aggressive egomaniac, Joe has made it his goal in the WWE to drop anyone that stands in his way.
He made that crystal clear when he captured the United States Championship after defeating Andrade, Rey Mysterio, and then-United States Champion R-Truth in a Fatal-4-Way Open Challenge back in March.
Since then, he's absolutely crushed his competition. A returning Ali was nearly massacred by Joe on his path towards WrestleMania 35, where he choked out Rey Mysterio in under two minutes.
The US Champion has been on a warpath, and tonight he made his new goal known in the opening segment of Monday Night RAW.
The heart of the matter
Seth Rollins and Triple H opened Monday Night RAW tonight. The Beastslayer stated that, unlike Brock Lesnar, he wanted to be a fighting champion, and was excited to see who his first official challenger would be.
Rollins and Triple H were immediately interupted by Samoa Joe, who stated that he stole an interesting idea from the WWE's dual champion, Becky Lynch. He plans on holding both the United States and WWE Universal Championship, and in order to do that, he'll put the Architect to sleep.
What's next?
Samoa Joe wasn't the only man to step up to Seth Rollins. Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin, The Miz, Rey Mysterio, and AJ Styles all came out to challenge for the belt.
Two triple threat matches were set up between the six men to determine the first challenger for the Universal Championship. Joe will take on Mysterio and Styles while McIntyre, Corbin, and The Miz will face each other later on.
Catch all the live updates from the 22nd April edition of Monday Night RAW.
