FOCUS YOUR FEUD: Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe – The Highs and Lows of the build to their Backlash match

The one constant in all of WWE programming is that there will always be feuds. Sometimes over titles, sometimes over prestige and sometimes over coffee. Here, we celebrate the highs and lows of WWE feudage and, hopefully, will only ever focus on a feud once.

I’m Tom Colohue and this is Focus Your Feud.

Follow Tom Colohue at @Colohue for updates.

Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe

Across the divide, two star crossed lovers take their life.

On in this case, battle over a title that neither of them have. Bit awkward, really.

While A.J. Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura has been a constantly evolving, slow moving, uppercut to the pork and beans sort of affair, Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe is a match with quite intense history. They feuded briefly as part of the five man battle after Wrestlemania to determine who would be the first number one contender to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title.

They battled again recently over the Intercontinental title, presenting themselves as some sort of eternal entwined battle that Samoa Joe pretty reliably lost. At no point did Roman look particularly threatened, it must be said.

So now here we are again, with Samoa Joe walking out and declaring himself as the next challenger for Roman Reigns’ championship. A championship that he does not have. Almost like this storyline is missing something, isn’t it?

It gets worse though. With a Greatest Royal Rumble on the horizon, Roman Reigns is already engaged to a date with Brock Lesnar in a very romantic and candlelit steel cage. Third wheel favourite Samoa Joe can only really talk about how awesome Brock Lesnar is. Clearly the man has eyes on Roman’s date. The end of night Tango is going to get a bit heated if you know what I mean.

“When you fail, once again, I’ll be waiting at #WWEBacklash, to PUT YOU TO SLEEP!”

Once @WWERomanReigns is finished with @BrockLesnar at #WWEGRR, @SamoaJoe will be waiting… pic.twitter.com/6HNDh3Va27

— WWE (@WWE) April 10, 2018

Now it’s possible of course that after the Greatest Royal Rumble, everything will be back in alignment. The big dog will be the big champion and Samoa Joe, owed a few wins after the amount of time he’s spent on his back for Roman, will be the challenger – only briefly on a wrong show and always ready to get back into the action. Unfortunately in the mean time all we get are promos by the wrong person about the wrong match on the wrong show.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of this feud has to be that it so clearly ends at Backlash in two weeks time. There’ll be one more go home show on each brand, during which neither man can interact with the other, and then no more than one match. Samoa Joe isn’t taking the Universal title after only a week of Reigns as champion so he really has no reason to cross back to Raw. If he did, why would they have moved him anyway.

This is unfortunately a real grin and bear it feud and that’s a shame. The match will be good; the two have always danced well before. That’s about all it has going for it though. Afterwards Reigns will go on to feud with top Raw heels like Jinder Mahal, Kevin Owens and, erm, Drew McIntyre?

At least, given Roman’s anti-villain persona, he can always slip straight into feuds with Strowman, Lashley and Balor again. That’s the beauty of being the world’s top tweener you see.

This three way dance of the meaty men has to end soon. Who gets the prize at the end of the night? Well, that’s anyone’s guess.

NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: FOCUS YOUR FEUD – A.J. Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura – Nakamura has delivered something fresh and enthralling