Injury To Samoa Joe Changes Plans For Raw

It was reported Monday afternoon that plans for Raw including Samoa Joe facing John Cena in a one-on-one encounter. Obviously, that match did not happen.

The word backstage is that Joe suffered some sort of knee injury at Saturday’s house show in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where he lost to Cena. Joe did not work Sunday’s house show in Tupelo, Mississippi as originally scheduled.

The belief among some people in WWE is that Joe’s injury could keep him sidelined for at least four weeks. WWE has not yet acknowledged the injury.

Had last night’s match gone down, it would have been their first-ever singles match on WWE television.

Before either were stars, the two faced off a few times in 2000 for Ultimate Pro Wrestling, a California-based independent pro wrestling company that operated from 1999 to 2007. They wrestled for the first time inside a WWE ring last Friday in Carbondale, Illinois, with Cena winning.

Here is footage of the match in its entirety.

Here is footage of the conclusion of their match in Jonesboro.

#WWEJonesboro @JohnCena @SamoaJoe. Awesome victory of #CenationLeader. Joe was dishonest in this match but this is #Cena who never loses pic.twitter.com/EdVGvliWGq

— CENA'$ SWEET F@N (@CenaSweetFan) August 27, 2017