Kurt Angle announced on tonight’s episode of RAW that Samoa Joe will face Roman Reigns on next week’s episode of RAW. The winner of that match will face Brock Lesnar at the upcoming WWE SummerSlam event for the Universal Championship.
As of this writing, no other matches or segments have been announced. We will keep you updated if they announce anything.
While the current betting odds favor Braun Strowman to defeat Roman Reigns at tonight’s WWE Great Balls of Fire event, Dave Meltzer claimed on Wrestling Observer Radio that the plan is still for Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar at this year’s SummerSlam event.
As previously reported, original plans called for Reigns to walk out of WrestleMania 34 as WWE Universal Champion, however WWE made a decision to move the match to SummerSlam instead. These plans were changed sometime around the time Braun Strowman returned to WWE programming.
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Russo mentions that he can’t stop thinking about the new Kevin Owens documentary, where Owens was shown backstage after his Universal Title win crying with Sami Zayn, Triple H and others. He talked about this on his show yesterday, and it’s been stuck in his head ever since. He can’t believe that ‘professional’ wrestlers are crying backstage over being scripted to win a fake Title.
Russo informs that he has worked with some of the biggest stars the industry ever produced. King Kong Bundy, Hogan, The Rock, Austin, they were all professionals. They came to work every day, did their job, and went home at the end of the night. They carried themselves perfectly, and they knew that they were working in the entertainment business.
Somewhere along the line, the wrestlers became marks. He knows that this doesn’t apply to all the performers, because he doesn’t picture guys like Braun Strowman or Roman Reigns acting this way. For the most part however, today’s generation of wrestlers are taking themselves and the business so seriously that they forget about the actual important things in life.
WWE announced that Big Cass will face Enzo Amore at the WWE Great Balls of Fire Event. Here is the updated card:
WWE Universal Title Match
Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar
RAW Women’s Championship
Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss
Ambulance Match
Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
Cruiserweight Title Match
Akira Tozawa vs. Neville
Bray Wyatt vs. Seth Rollins
Big Cass vs. Enzo Amore
Great Balls of Fire takes place on July 9th from the American Airlines Center in Dallas. As always, we will have live play-by-play coverage of the event.
There is speculation that the Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar match that was previously scheduled to take place at WrestleMania 34 could be taking place at SummerSlam this year instead.
This move is being taken to increase the presence of the Universal Title on weekly RAW shows in order to increase the poor TV ratings. The speculation holds a lot of relevance since Reigns announced that he was next in line to challenge Lesnar for the title on this week’s Monday Night RAW episode.
Additionally, Dave Meltzer mentioned in a recent installment of Wrestling Observer Radio that plans may have changed because Braun Strowman returned from injury much earlier than expected. With his early return, some planned matches have been switched around.
What are your thoughts on this match-up? Sound off in the comment box below…
Coming out of Monday’s episode of RAW, the following matches are expected to take place at the upcoming WWE Great Balls of Fire event:
WWE Universal Championship
Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar
Ambulance Match
Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns
WWE Intercontinental Championship
The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose
WWE Tag Team Championship
The Hardy Boyz vs. Cesaro & Sheamus
WWE Cruiserweight Championship
T0zawa vs. Neville
Finn Balor vs. The Drifter
R-Truth vs. Goldust
In regards to the women’s match on the card, Dave Meltzer speculates that it will probably be another multi-persons match, presumably a three-on-three match.
WWE Great Balls of Fire takes place on July 9th. As always, we will be providing live play-by-play coverage of the event.
As seen at Extreme Rules last Sunday, Samoa Joe won the fatal 5-way match against Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt to earn a shot at Brock Lesnar’s WWE Universal Championship title.
The match is scheduled to take place between Joe and Lesnar at the July 9th Great Balls of Fire event. What’s interesting about the match is it’s date, as it is exactly one year to the day after Lesnar returned to the UFC and controversially defeated Samoan knockout artic Mark Hunt at UFC 200.
Unless plans change, Lesnar is expected to go over Joe at the event and move on to a new challenger at the next pay-per-view event.
The following card is rumored for the upcoming July 9th WWE Great Balls of Fire event:
WWE Universal Championship (confirmed)
Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Samoa Joe
RAW Tag-Team Championship
Shesaro (c) vs. The Hardyz
Intercontinental Championship
The Miz (c) vs. Dean Ambrose
RAW Women’s Championship
Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Nia Jax
Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt
Goldust vs. R-Truth
With the event being 3 hours long and with the pre-show, it is very possible that they add one or two more under card matches.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As seen on Monday’s episode of RAW, Samoa Joe choked out Paul Heyman as part of the build to the upcoming match between Brock Lesnar and Joe for the WWE Universal Championship at the Great Balls of Fire event. Since then, the two have been exchanging messages on Twitter. You can check out the exchange below:
We are about an hour away from Extreme Rules and the final betting odds are in. It was noted earlier today that Seth Rollins was the favorite to win the #1 contender match for the WWE Universal Championship, however there has been another switch. Samoe Joe, who was the favorite earlier this week, is once again the favorite to win the match.
Here are the updated odds:
Samoa Joe (-900), Seth Rollins (+600), Finn Balor (+3500), Bray Wyatt (+5000) and Roman Reigns (+7500).
The Miz (-4800) is favored to win where Dean Ambrose (+1600) will lose the title if he is disqualified.
Alexa Bliss (-2300) is favored to retain the Women’s Championship against Bayley (+1100) in a Kendo Stick-on-a-Pole match.
Cesaro and Sheamus (-16,000) are favored to win the Tag Team Championship from The Hardy Boyz (+4000) in a Steel Cage match.
Neville (-7500) is favored to retain the WWE Cruiserweight Championship against Austin Aries (+2500) in a Submission match.
Rich Swann & Sasha Banks (-6000) are favored to win the Mixed Tag Team match against Noam Dar & Alicia Fox (+2000).
Coverage of tonight’s show kicks off at 7PM ET. We will have a live fan discussion on RingsideTalk.net.
Jinder Mahal recently spoke with nishant.jayaram of sportskeeda.com for an interview. Here are some highlights:
WWE’s Plans to Expand The India Market: Yes, definitely, WWE is looking to expand in India. It already has a huge presence in India. So I believe, alongside other Indian Superstars like the Singh Brothers, Akam in NXT, Lovepreet (Kishan Raftar), I think the more Indian wrestlers come, the bigger the Indian audience becomes, the bigger the WWE Universe in India becomes, which I think would be a great thing because our Indian fans are very passionate.I would love to do more live shows in India – because I know the last two shows in Delhi last year were a huge success, they were both sold out. I would love to see WWE all across India, in Punjab, Mumbai and Delhi.
How US Fans Treat Him: Actually, it’s a very unique dynamic because the American fans boo me – and sometimes in my promos, I say that America doesn’t accept diversity, which is all character stuff. But I like this unique dynamic of how Indians really like me, even American Indian fans like me. In shows here in the USA, a lot of the crowd has Indian fans who are cheering for me, but the American fans are booing for me.I think it’s very unique. It reminds me of the time of Bret Hart, who was a huge and successful star in Canada – Canadian fans would cheer him, but when he was wrestling in the USA, they would (fans) boo him out of the building. I think it is a very similar situation.
New Finishing Move The Khallas: To be a WWE Superstar you’ve to constantly be evolving and improving. I study a lot of tapes, I watch a lot of old wrestling matches and see moves that work and moves that don’t work. I watch guys that are similar to my size, frame and body shape and the moves they do. Because it’s pointless for me to watch high-flying moves or guys that weigh 300+ pound power moves. I’m a unique blend of speed, size and light – I’m only 230 pounds but I’m very strong. I watch guys who are similar to my body type and see what kind of moves they do, and see what works and doesn’t, and based of that I try new stuff on live events. So, if they’re not successful I can scrap it and take it out of my repertoire.
The Success of 3MB: We’re proof – me, Heath and Drew (former members of 3MB) – are proof that anything is possible, it doesn’t matter where you are on the card. You could be the opening match, it is possible to get to the top of the card, through hard work. WWE is great, it gives people opportunities who deserve opportunities, Vince rewards hard work, WWE rewards hard work, so it motivates the rest of the locker room – they’ve seen me go from the bottom of the card to the top.
Dream Opponent: I think my dream opponent is Brock Lesnar. Imagine that match – Champion vs Champion, WWE Champion vs Universal Champion. He is my dream opponent because if I can knock off Brock Lesnar that would truly solidify me… I’m the best and let the world know that the WWE Champion is better than Universal Champion.