Samoa Joe has been a key performer on WWE Raw this summer after his impressive showing leading up to the Brock Lesnar dream match at Great Balls of Fire and as part of the four way main event of SummerSlam. On last week’s Raw, he got in the face of Roman Reigns and John Cena to let them know that he feels like he’s the man on that show and that both guys had to get through him. Joe was absent from this week’s Raw with no explanation given by the announcers. Sadly, it’s a knee injury that kept him on the shelf.
Joe suffered the injury during a live event this weekend during a match against John Cena. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Joe and Cena were scheduled to wrestle eachother during the Raw house show loop from Friday to Sunday, but during their match on Saturday night in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Joe suffered a knee injury. Joe didn’t wrestle on Sunday night in Tupelo, Mississippi while Cena ended up facing Bray Wyatt instead. You probably don’t need to be told this, but if you’re wondering, Cena won all of those matches.
The plan for Raw was to have Joe face Cena on television for the first time ever in the main event, but that was scrapped due to the injury. It was noted by Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio that the awesome Cena/Reigns promo on Raw was always the plan and Joe was likely going to interrupt that leading to the match with Cena. However, due to Joe being hurt, it didn’t happen.
The good news is that Joe won’t be out for too long with Meltzer reporting that Joe will be out of action for “six weeks or less” while PWInsider said that Joe will be out “at least four weeks.” That likely means Joe will be out 4-6 weeks. It’s certainly not as bad as it could be and if you miss Joe from WWE television, at least he won’t be out too long.
Samoa Joe’s injury will likely mean he will miss Raw’s next pay-per-view No Mercy on September 24 in less than four weeks. It’s possible that he will be ready before that, but I don’t think they are going to rush him back when Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns vs. John Cena have already been announced. Joe can rest up and maybe have that first televised match with Cena at an event later this year.
