The WWE has announced that Samoa Joe suffered an injury during his match with Rhyno on Monday’s episode of Raw and is out of the “Mixed Match Challenge”.
Joe informed the WWE physicians that he felt a pop at the bottom of his right foot during the match. It is believed that Joe suffered a plantar fascia rupture, which is an injury that can take up to 12 weeks to make a full recovery from.
This coincided with a fan vote for Bayley’s partner in the upcoming “Mixed Match Challenge”, which Joe won and instead it will be Elias teaming with Bayley.
There is no word on how much time Joe is expected to miss and if this will affect his participation at the Royal Rumble on January 28th.
Meanwhile, the WWE announced more teams for the “Mixed Match Challenge” on Tuesday with the additions of Shinsuke Nakamura and Natalya as well as Sami Zayn and Becky Lynch.
The final team to be announced will be through a fan vote with one member of the New Day being chosen to team with Carmella.
Absolutely gutted! Especially after the tease on Raw about what he might be up to at Rumble and beyond. And sucks for him. Not on Mania last year and now even if he makes it this year there probably isn’t time to set him up with anything major.
This isn’t good for Joe. This is his second injury in six months or something and while he’s proven himself to be a solid hand in the ring and someone they can rely on to get heat through his mic work, if he becomes “the injured guy” he’s not going to get the run he deserves with a world title because he’ll be the gatekeeper guy; the guy people beat on their way to the top because he can be relied on to make a star but can’t be relied on to carry the strap and therefore the company.
I feel like if WWE had ideas about giving Joe a major role or even a championship at some point, this went all out the window after this injury. It’s suck for him because now, they will probably see him more as a good hand that can help guy move to the next level and he’s going to lose a lot of matches in the process. Plus if this injury is serious, he might miss Wrestlemania for the second year in a row and how many more years does he have left in his career.
