WWE: Samoa Joe will always feel legit, no matter the losses

At Extreme Rules, a result that was almost an inevitability happened. Samoa Joe lost a WWE Championship match. Yet, no matter how many times he loses, Joe will always be a legitimate main event player.

By now, you may have seen this gem of a statistic from Fightful.com’s Sean Ross Sapp, who reminded wrestling fans that Samoa Joe is now 0-8 in televised or Pay Per View WWE Championship and Universal Championship matches.

To say that’s a dubious record would be an understatement. That is a level of championship futility that would make Minnesota Vikings or Buffalo Bills fans swoon. Joe is the anti-Eli Manning of WWE Superstars, which is to say his skills seem to decline precipitously when all the chips are on the table.

As wild as this statistic is, this shouldn’t lead you think that Joe is “ruined”.

No, if after an 0-7 record in title matches you still believed Joe was a legitimate threat to Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship reign, then why would the 8th loss be the final blow? What’s so different about this loss to Kingston than the losses to AJ Styles in 2018 or the loss to Brock Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire? Why would losing to literally one of the greatest WWE Champions of all time in Kingston devalue Joe’s credibility?

It wouldn’t. Because the reason why you believe in Joe as a threat and as a formidable WWE Superstar goes beyond a title or a win or anything else. You believe Joe because he makes you belief. He suspends all elements of disbelief, and makes you actually think that he could kill someone in the middle of the ring.

The way Samoa Joe speaks is mesmerizing. He stares into a superstar’s soul and reads them their eulogy to their face, spouting off words at a pace that would make Busta Rhymes’s head turn.

Joe spares nobody, bringing a fire out of champions like Styles and Kingston that leads to memorable feuds and matches.

Samoa Joe could honestly go 0-20 and lose every title match for his entire career, and you’d almost certainly still believe in him as a potential main eventer on Raw or SmackDown. (Except, of course, he’s technically in the big upper mid-card jumble that defines most superstars today.)

And the reason why is simple: Samoa Joe is too good at pro wrestling to not believe.

Beyond the promos, Joe’s big matches are always good-to-great. He’s a rare athlete in the ring with a combination of speed and power that few superstars possess.

Joe is an experienced technical wrestler, too, and the Coquina Clutch still stands as one of wrestling’s most devastating finishers. When a superstar is able to fend it off, it’s still a big deal; the story of that move played a huge role in further validating Kingston as an elite champion on Sunday.

There’s also this undying belief that one day, Joe will get his huge win.

Whether it be an even crazier rampage that we’ve seen before or a satisfying triumph at a major Pay Per View, the glimmer of hope that Joe can win a world championship still exists. And that glimmer is fueled by his talent, which is undeniable to those who have watched him over the years in WWE, NXT, or, yes, TNA.

So Joe isn’t ruined by losing to Kofi at Extreme Rules. Far from it. He’s a great wrestler who was outwitted and outwrestled by an even better wrestler. And while the loss takes Joe back to the proverbial drawing board, a few more wins and just one chilling promo will have fans believing that he’s finally found the formula.

Because in a lot of ways, Joe has always had the formula. Except I’m not talking about the formula to winning, I’m talking about the formula to immersing an audience in pro wrestling so that for a brief few minutes, his words are the only thing that matter.

That’s why you’ll always believe in Samoa Joe and not the 0-8.