At "Extreme Rules" last night, the WWE named their new No. 1 contender to the WWE Universal Championship and samoa joe won the match to battle Brock Lesnar at "Great Balls Of Fire" in July. This will be the first title defense for Brock since winning the title from Bill Goldberg at "WrestleMania 33." It will also be the first world title shot for Samoa Joe since he came up from NXT, and provides a dream match for many professional wrestling fans who followed his career since his days in Ring of Honor and TNA Impact Wrestling.
Samoa Joe's world title history
Samoa Joe may have never fought for a world title since coming up to the WWE main roster, but he has held many major titles over his professional wrestling career. Joe got his start in Ring of Honor where he won the ROH World Championship and held it longer than anyone before him or since. Joe held the title for 21 months, beating names like Austin Aries, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Colt Cabana, Homicide, and more.
Samoa Joe then moved on to TNA Impact Wrestling where he once again dominated. He went undefeated for 19 months and ended up as a five-time X-Division Champion and one-time TNA Impact Wrestling World Champion. His matches against Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, and Christopher Daniels remain some of the best in Impact Wrestling history.
The time finally came when Samoa Joe made his way to the WWE. Like most other wrestlers from Ring of Honor and TNA Impact Wrestling, Joe started out in NXT and was the first person to ever win the NXT Championship twice. The first title win came against Finn Balor at a live untelevised event to the shock of his fans.
He lost his title to Shinsuke Nakamura, won it back, and then lost it again to Nakamura before coming up to "Monday Night Raw."
Samoa Joe gets his WWE Universal Championship shot
The big thing that many Samoa Joe fans see when considering he is fighting Brock Lesnar is that both men use an MMA style and this should be one of the hardest hitting matches of Brock's title reign.
However, what will probably disappoint Joe's fans is that there is no chance he wins the title. Joe won't even get another chance after this, according to WWE rumors.
This is supposed to be a quick feud, a one-and-done, between Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe. The feud will last a month and then Brock will beat Joe and move on to his huge rumored "SummerSlam" match against Braun Strowman. There are more title matches coming up over the next year with Seth Rollins and Finn Balor getting shots. While Joe won't win the title at "Great Balls of Fire," a good showing could really make him a major player in the WWE.