Fastlane is in less than two weeks and the Monday Night Raw -exclusive event has five big matches already scheduled for the card. Four of those matches are for different championships while the fifth will stack two behemoths in the ring at the same time. More matches are likely to be added, though, and rumors are now flying that Samoa Joe is going to have his first WWE pay-per-view (PPV) match against someone he has faced before.
Over the last few weeks, fans have watched Samoa Joe run wild on Monday Night Raw , and his latest victim was Sami Zayn who was unexpectedly attacked. At the end of that brutal beating, Samoa Joe choked out Zayn on the stage and left him laying in a heap.
Zayn didn’t look good and making matters worse, he was trashed by Kevin Owens on Raw this past week. While Owens is heading into Fastlane to defend his Universal Title against Goldberg, Zayn may have a very tough challenge of his own ahead of him.
According to Wrestling News World , that beatdown by Samoa Joe is going to lead him to his first PPV match for the company. It appears as if he hasn’t only been facing Sami Zayn at house show events, but he’s going to face him at Fastlane as well.
These two had some insane battles in NXT and fans will love to see them working together once again in the ring. It is likely that Zayn will take the loss here, though, as it isn’t expected that Samoa Joe will lose his first ever PPV match on the main roster.
The original plan was for Joe to face Seth Rollins at Fastlane , but Rollins suffered that injury during Joe’s debut, and he was put on the shelf. WWE still expects Rollins to be back in time for WrestleMania 33 , but there is no way he will be ready in a couple of weeks, as per Sports Keeda .
Confirmed matches for Fastlane :
- WWE Universal Championship: Kevin Owens (c) vs. Goldberg
- WWE Cruiserweight Championship: Neville (c) vs. Jack Gallagher
- Raw Women’s Championship: Bayley (c) vs. Charlotte Flair
- Raw Tag Team Championship: Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson (c) vs. Enzo Amore & Big Cass
- Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman
Now, the official Fastlane preview page on WWE ‘s website has only those five matches as confirmed, but it is expected that one or two more will be added. Along with that, it is likely that a seventh or eighth match will be added to take place on the Kickoff Show.
Rumored matches for Fastlane :
- Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe
- The New Day vs. Rusev & Jinder Mahal
The most interesting thing about this new rumored match is that Sami Zayn is now likely to take a loss to Samoa Joe at Fastlane and that is a far cry from the original plans for him at the PPV. Zayn had been going back and forth with United States Champion Chris Jericho for weeks, and it looked as if they were on a collision course with one another.
As Inquisitr reported, some promotional commercials for Fastlane even had the graphic for Zayn to take on Jericho for that title. Now, plans have changed, and rumors have taken Zayn from winning the U.S. Title to taking a loss to one of the most brutal superstars on the roster.
Fastlane is actually shaping up to be a pretty big event considering it is taking place less than a month before WrestleMania 33 . Four titles on the line and the chances are that virtually everyone on the card will move onto a different feud for the giant PPV in Orlando. Samoa Joe is just getting his feet wet on WWE’s main roster, and a match against Sami Zayn will bring back memories of the some of the wars they waged in NXT.
[Featured Image by WWE]