Samoa Joe Might Miss His World Championship Window with a Loss at SummerSlam

Samoa Joe is as close to a world championship on the WWE main roster as he has ever been, but with a loss at SummerSlam, this could be the closest he will ever get. 

According to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated (h/t Marc Middleton of Wrestling Inc), Paul Heyman is pushing backstage for Joe to become a world champion on the main roster for the first time. If this is true, this points to the possibility that Lesnar's next hiatus will be attributed to the stipulation that he will leave WWE if he loses the Universal Championship at SummerSlam.

With Lesnar's attention shared between WWE and UFC, where he could sign on to a superfight against Jon Jones, per WWE.com, Samoa Joe stands out as the most likely beneficiary. 

Odds for the SummerSlam main event were recently released from Bet Wrestling (h/t Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc), and Lesnar and Joe are pretty much the even favorites. Roman Reigns hardly needs a world championship to be relevant, and Braun Strowman is still on his way up the ranks as he continues to make an impression as a main eventer.

Samoa Joe, on the other hand, is at the back end of his prime. And at 38 with almost two decades in the wrestling business, it's hard to envision Joe as a major part of WWE's future. By failing to strike while the iron is hot, it would be too easy for WWE to move on from Samoa Joe and slot him as a low-ceiling veteran similar to where Cesaro and Sheamus are positioned.

Joe overachieved in his feud with Lesnar. From the buildup through to their match at Great Balls of Fire, the former Ring of Honor world champion looked and acted the part of a legitimate shoot fighter in ways few others on the WWE roster can. With Joe as universal champion, Raw would go back to the dynamic of having a world champion on television every week, meaning there could be title defenses on television, just in time to compete with Monday Night Football.

Samoa Joe is on the shortlist of being just as convincing as a dominant world champion as Lesnar. But after losing his previous matchup against The Beast Incarnate, it would be tough to argue that Joe would deserve another shot if he comes up short yet again at SummerSlam, especially after WWE aired a YouTube clip of him losing a short Universal Championship match to Lesnar at a house show.

Despite already competing against most of the Raw main event scene on television, Samoa Joe as a dominant champion would add a new dynamic to the show with a series of great matches against worthy competitors, cementing the Samoan Submission Machine as one of the best of his generation. 

Alfred Konuwa is a Featured Columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report and Forbes. Like him on Facebook.