I do must preface this by saying that I’m over the moon that Samoa Joe is back in AEW. He’s one among the best of all time and needs to be treated as such, and when he was taken off of TV earlier this yr after suffering a concussion, it was an actual shame considering he was firmly established within the primary event scene once more.
On this week’s episode of “AEW Dynamite,” Joe returned on the last minute to face Cody Chhun in what was, in brief, a squash match. There is no problem with that. Joe did his walkaway spot, he hit the Muscle Buster, the fans were super completely happy to see him back, it served its purpose, and that is completely positive. Nonetheless, there was a standard theme running through AEW this yr, particularly within the primary event scene, where everyone wants their shot on the AEW World Championship, a title Joe held lower than 4 months ago. You’ll think that after his win, he’d get on the microphone and do what Tommaso Ciampa, Kevin Knight, and Brody King have done prior to now seven days: call out the AEW World Champion.
Did that occur? No, it didn’t. What happened as a substitute? Joe walked up the ramp and reunited with Hook, who, because the interim leader of The Opps, had tried to recruit Anthony Bowens, and that is about it. Will that story go somewhere? Probably, but Joe was one among the numerous people gunning for the richest prize in AEW on the turn of the brand new yr, so you’ll think that he would need to get that back almost immediately. But nothing was said by the person himself. There have been a couple of mentions within the commentary, but it’s worthwhile to hear it from Joe that he wants what’s rightfully his back around his waist, especially now, because it’s across the waist of Darby Allin who Joe has a protracted history.
Joe could be an ideal opponent for Darby as well, given their late 2022/early 2023 series fighting over the AEW TNT Championship. Darby has already said he desires to defend it as much as possible, so there’s a simple option to get Joe back into title contention. Nonetheless, it looks as if we’ll need to see Joe clean up whatever mess Hook made with The Opps before anything goes further, and no disrespect to Bowens, but Joe doesn’t have time to waste on recruiting recent members to his group.
He’s only been back for per week. I just hope that Joe keeps his eye on the prize, relatively than what Hook has been doing since he’s been gone.
Written by Sam Palmer.