By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)

August 24, 2018

That psycho, Samoa Joe, is at it again folks...

After beating AJ Styles at SummerSlam, due to a DQ (meaning no title change), Samoa Joe decided it was time to earn another shot at beating the best in the business. Not as great as the behind the back crashing of the contract signing a month ago, Joe attacked AJ from the entrance ramp. By pulling AJ's legs out from under him and then proceeding to taunt Styles and his family, Joe let us know that this rivalry is just getting started.

Backing up to SummerSlam, we saw Samoa Joe call out Wendy Styles(and what looked like AJ Styles youngest child) mid-match. In the call-out, Joe let Wendy know that even though AJ wasn't going to make it out of this match, that they would still have a Daddy to come home to: Joe himself. It was hilarious. Twisted...gross...sick...but hilarious.

This really does highlight how much the WWE has wasted Joe. We’re getting the same AJ Styles in the ring, but holy crap is it great seeing some pure anger and hate out of the guy. AJ is definitely a cup of vanilla pudding, when it comes to his personality, but Samoa Joe has topped that sucker with caramel, cinnamon, sprinkles, and... a little bit of love.

The love isn’t coming directly from Joe, but it’s more of a byproduct of where Joe is attacking Styles. Attacking his family appears to have ignited one hell of flame under Styles. He’s believable and he’s scary now. In what I’d like to think I would bring to the table, should someone threaten to take my family from me, Styles went nuts and destroyed Joe at SummerSlam. Styles has always been business first, which helped build his character into a great champion. But now that he’s been matched with a sadistic, torturous mad man (with murder-like tendencies), AJ is really standing out.

Go back to WrestleMania (and the couple of big matches after April) and the feud between Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura. How dumb does that feud look now? I mean, it was incredibly uncreative and borderline disrespectful (due to Nakamura and Styles being two of the most accomplished pro wrestlers on the planet). Two guys, punching each other’s nuts till the nuts popped. In what should have been a celebration of pro wrestling, it felt more like a dick measuring contest. Only, it wasn’t Styles and Nakamura with the rulers in hand, it was Vince McMahon against all other pro wrestling circuits.

Surprisingly, Samoa Joe seems to be given free rein to do whatever he wants here. And I don’t mean he’ll commit a murder (like on Impact Wrestling this past week). I mean, unlike Shinsuke Nakamura, Joe seems to have the trust of WWE executives and the creative team. He feels off the cuff. He might not be, but at least we get that feeling from Joe. At least there’s some measure of sincerity in his voice that we can actually trust Joe in being a vile, disgusting excuse for a human (the character of course).

As I chew through some coffee grounds that somehow made it through the filter, I’m hoping that a successful run by Joe and Styles will mean guys like Bobby Roode will get a little more leeway. It has been well-documented that anyone surfacing from NXT must pass the rigors of uninspired works from the creative team. Joe and Styles, pulling off a homerun, will surely mean they’ll be willing to test these waters again. It does suck, but even I can relate to wanting to promote and build the people I know, in front of the people I don’t.

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