9. Samoa Joe
There is no other way to say this, Samoa Joe should be our new WWE Champion. Joe and WWE Champ, AJ Styles, have been at each other’s throats for months now. Joe has continually crossed a line by talking about AJ’s family and threatening to send Styles home to his family for good. The Samoan Submission Machine actually got the better of the champ at Summerslam, beating Styles by DQ after Styles’s temper got the best of him. He attacked Joe with a chair after Joe grabbed a mic and taunted the Styles family, who was in attendance.
This would lead to another matchup between the two, this time at Hell in a Cell. While most of us felt this match deserved to be held in a Cell, the two still managed to make this a brutal affair. The match itself was fantastic, however it did end in controversial fashion. As Styles was going for the knockout blow, Joe countered the Phenomenal Forearm, and caught AJ in the Coquina Clutch. As Joe tried to fully lock the move in, Styles blocked it by rolling backwards over Joe into a pin. Although the champ got the 1, 2, 3, Joe jumped up like he had won the match, yelling at the ref that the champ had tapped out. After multiple replays, we finally see that AJ was actually tapping out to the Clutch as the ref was counting and before he counted to 3.
Samoa Joe was livid backstage after the match, demanding that the ref, then Paige, reverse the decision and make him the new WWE Champion. Paige refused to do so, however she did give Joe a rematch that is scheduled for the Super Show-Down next month. With the drama surrounding the two’s matches so far, we can expect for this match to have a special stipulation (No DQ perhaps?) to give us a clear cut winner and champion in Australia.
