The 2020 edition of the legendary WWE Royal Rumble is going down tonight! Two iterations of the most famous special match type in pro wrestling await us! 30 men and 30 women all vying for a shot at the top prize of their division on the grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania! I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer and I’ve been going through the top favorites to win this match one-by-one! We’ve but hours left until the Rumble so let’s get into the chances for Samoa Joe!
Relevant Stats – Samoa Joe
- WWE Debut: 2017 (Debuted in NXT in 2015)
- First Rumble appearance: 2019
- He has never won a Rumble match.
- This will be his second Rumble appearance.
- He has amassed three total eliminations.
- He has never been world champion.
- Current betting odds: +3300
How 2019 Went For Samoa Joe:
Joe started out the year on the blue brand, just coming off a 2018 where he’d been aggressively hunting AJ Styles’ WWE Championship to no avail. He was still in that title picture at the beginning of 2019, atleast enough so that he was involved in the Elimination Chamber match for the gold. But this proved unsuccessful, and from there he transitioned down the card a little bit. He instead went after the US title and in a fatal four way match including Andrade, Rey Mysterio and champion R-Truth (which basically happened a week early for some reason as it also went down at Fastlane five days later) he ended up taking the star spangled championship.
Joe would stay in the range of this title throughout the Spring.
In one of his strongest bookings ever, he made pass out in less than a minute at WrestleMania to retain the title. However, he lost it to Rey in a similarly short match at Money In The Bank a month later. Buuut Rey also injured himself in the process and had to relinquish the title, handing it right back to Samoa Joe. Who promptly lost the gold to Ricochet a few weeks later. Yeah, it was kind of a mess and honestly all those reigns are tragically easy to forget already.
However, Samoa Joe bounced back from the loss quickly by choking out WWE Champion Kofi Kingston and going after the top prize yet again. But this only led to another failure, as Kingston repelled his challenge. Joe remained in the title picture again until Smackville, where he was part of a triple threat for the gold but once again failed to win the WWE title. He then entered King of the Ring where he got himself into a weird triple threat semi final situation, but Baron Corbin took the win there.
This was his last match in 2019 as he succumbed to a thumb injury shortly after.
Joe transitioned to commentary on Raw, where he was drafted. This was always temporary of course, and eventually he found himself goaded into a feud with Seth Rollins and AOP. He closed out the year vowing to take the fight to them. And he has lived up to that promise since then.
Where does that leave his chances?
I don’t know if I’d say his odds are great. But I do think they’re better than Vegas is giving him credit for. After all, he just made a big return from injury to become a babyface for the first time in his main roster tenure. And he did so against the dominant heel faction that’s looking to take over Raw. Granted, Kevin Owens is considered the top guy in this budding babyface faction. But you can’t really discount someone like Samoa Joe. It would not be at all strange to see him cleaning house in a Royal Rumble match.
What would his story be?
Similar to Owens, if Joe is winning the Rumble then naturally Seth Rollins is gonna become the top champion before Mania. Though I do think given how prominent Owens is, the scenario might change a bit. It’s possible a multi-way would be formed from this. And since I don’t see Rollins being on a 2-on-1 disadvantage with two babyfaces, it might mean a four way. Joe, Owens, Rollins and Lesnar. Could happen…
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