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Samoa Joe Should Be The Next Universal Champion

Mr. Brock “The ‘Conqueror’ Beast” Lesnar will finally defend his Universal Championship at the aptly named Great Balls of Fire. His opponent is none other than Mr. Samoa “Samoan Submission ‘Destroyer’ Specialist” Joe. This has all the potential in the world to be a great match if WWE actually decides to book a proper match. It should be a hard-fought battle, but many feel that he is a placeholder contender until the proper Samoan can win the title. We still don’t know what WWE’s plans are, but hopefully, they crown the Destroyer in July. The Samoan Submission Specialist would be a great Universal Champion, and here’s why.

He’d Actually Be There Most of the Time

We can’t really fault Lesnar for wanting to work 10 times a year and get paid millions for it. He took Mr. Perfect’s advice to refrain from making wrestling his whole life. Good for him. I can respect that.

However, when Lesnar has the championship and disappears for months on end to go kill a wolf with his bare hands, it can leave Raw feeling a bit barren. Obviously, when he does show up, it’s a big deal, which adds to his star power (and to an extent, the star power of the belt).

If Samoa Joe had the title, we’d be seeing it a bit more often, what with the fact that Joe is actually a full-time Superstar. There are two groups of people when it comes to top championships. Some people prefer frequent defenses, while others want to save those for big occasions. Both are right, but there’s a fine line in between them. It’s been 69 days since the title was defended, and it hasn’t been successfully defended at all in almost 100 days. That’s kind of bad.

With the Destroyer holding the championship, we’d see it defended a bit more frequently, which could help boost the stock of the belt.

He Could Have Great Matches With the Rest of the Roster

Brock is an incredible wrestler, there’s no doubt about that. So is Joe. The problem is that ever since Lesnar defeated John Cena at Summerslam, his matches have since devolved into suplex spam. It’s like when you first learn to play Mortal Kombat and all you do is press one button and try to win. The difference is, Brock Lesnar actually wins. So there’s that.

Joe’ first/last feud with Seth Rollins sucked a whole lot, but that was because of the story. The matches were fine. There was just no real reason for the Destroyer to fight the Kingslayer other than “hurr durr Stephanie fell through a table, I’m gonna kick your ass”. Rollins defeated Triple H; that should have been the end of his story with Joe.

If the Samoan Submission Specialist got his hands on the Universal Championship, then he could put on great matches with the other big names on Raw. I wouldn’t mind seeing Rollins v. Joe again. I wouldn’t even mind seeing Balor v. Joe again. Heck, let’s put the two Samoans in one match and have them beat the hell out of each other for the Universal Championship.

It Will Boost the Championship’s Image

We are all aware of the Universal Championship’s lineage. Finn Balor was the inaugural champion and vacated the title the very next day. Kevin Owens held the title after and sucked more than a black hole during his reign. Goldberg won the belt in 30 seconds and dropped it in 28 days, and now Lesnar has the title. How many truly great Universal Championship matches can you count? Maybe 4 or 5. How many truly great WWE Championship matches can you count? Way more. Heck, even the World Heavyweight Championship (RIP) had more great matches. Randy Orton v. Christian at Over the Limit, Randy Orton v. Christian at Capitol Punishment, Randy Orton v. Christian at Money in the Bank, Randy Orton v. Christian at Summerslam, etc.

The Universal Championship hasn’t even been around for a year, so obviously, there have been less memorable matches. With Samoa Joe as champion, those matches can start happening. The Destroyer locking horns with the Demon, the Big Dog, or even the Eater of Worlds over the Universal Championship would be a sight to see.

Of course, none of this will come to pass because Lesnar is keeping the belt warm for the Big Dog. Beleedat.

Jinder Mahal Almost Quit Wrestling To Open Subway Sandwich Shop?

Apparently Jinder Mahal had plans at one point to hang up his wrestling boots and put on an apron to dish up some of Subway’s finest sandwiches.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that a while back Mahal had decided that he was looking to get out of the wrestling business and open up a Subway sandwich shop instead. Very little details were provided but if I had to speculate this was probably some time after his first release from WWE when things weren’t working out for him. Obviously this never happened as he gave wrestling another go and the rest is history.

We were also told that Real estate was another option for him as well.

Who Is Currently the Favorite to Win the Money in the Bank Briefcase?

While the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported last week that Nakumara was the favorite to win the Money in the Bank briefcase this year, betting odds would have you thinking otherwise.

Early betting odds suggest that Baron Corbin will be leaving the June 18th as the rightful holder of the briefcase. Here are the odds for the match:

* Baron Corbin -165
* Kevin Owens +500
* AJ Styles +600
* Sami Zayn +600
* Shinsuke Nakamura +700
* Dolph Ziggler +2500

Former WWE Superstar Santino Marella Making Wrestling Comeback

It looks like Santino Marella is coming out of retirement to wrestle once again.

According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Santino will wrestle later this year for his own Battlarts promotion. He runs the promotion out of his gym in Mississauga, Ontario.

For those not aware, Santino declared his retirement on July 6th, 2014 at a house show in Toronto, Ontario after he suffered his third neck injury. He was released in 2016 from WWE.

Note on Picture-In-Picture Advertising on SmackDown Live

As many of you have seen recently. WWE is now doing picture-in-picture advertising on the SmackDown Live brand on Tuesday nights. This was apparently the USA Network’s idea as they plan on doing it for other shows. The idea is to keep the viewers from changing the channel during commercial breaks.

It’s worth pointing out that WWE is only doing the picture-in-picture advertising for the non-important matches and are still doing full-on commercials for their bigger matches. This past Tuesday on SmackDown they did normal commercial breaks for the AJ Styles vs. Dolph Ziggler match and other popular matches.

Vince McMahon Says Chris Jericho Is The Only Person Who Could Get “Stupid Idiot” Over with Fans

Chris Jericho recently spoke with Rock 100.5 ATL’s Bailey and Southside. Here are some highlights:

The Creation of The List: “Working with this guys who’s a writer in the WWE named Jimmy Jacobs. He used to be a [pro] wrestler. He came up to me one day and said, ‘what if we do something where you put somebody on this list?’ I’m like, ‘I knew this guy once who had a list of people he didn’t like.’ I’m like, ‘oh, that sounds funny.’ So I said it and it kind of got a reaction.” Jericho said, “the whole concept of The List went through the roof. The List is more popular than 85% of the guys on the show. The List is more popular than I am! And you just never know what’s going to make an impression with fans.”

Getting Stupid Idiot Over: “They’re chanting it now, ‘stupid idiot’ and I remember when I started saying that, Vince was like, ‘nobody could say this, nobody can get away with this, but you can. You’re the only guy in the world who could do this’ because when I started using ‘stupid idiot,’ it got heat. I would call the fans, ‘you’re a stupid idiots’ and they’d be like, ‘boo!’ and then, like everything else, suddenly people loved it.”

Sheamus Going After the Intercontinental Championship?

Sheamus indicated on Twitter that he wants to hold the Intercontinental Championship, the one title that has eluded him to date. Here is his twitter, which sparked a response The Miz:

Jim Cornette Challenges Vince Russo to Face-to-Face Meeting

The following audio clip of Jim Cornette challenging former WWE writer Vince Russo to a face-to-face meeting was published to his Talking Sense YouTube channel. For those not keeping track, the two have been bad mouthing each other on their podcasts ever since the “Table for 3” episode aired on the WWE Network that saw both Eric Bischoff and Cornette making remarks about Russo.

“Here it is finally! Jim Cornette issues a challenge to meet up with Vince Russo at a time and place of his choosing, away from police, an audience and public announcement, for a final showdown between the two bitter enemies. THAT is how to cut a promo!”