5 Possible WWE Championship challengers for Kofi Kingston after Extreme Rules
Kofi Kingston defeated Samoa Joe at WWE Extreme Rules to extend his WWE Championship reign to 99 days and counting.
The story of the match revolved around Kingston’s middle finger, which he used to insult his rival on SmackDown Live in the build-up to their title match. As payback, Joe targeted the WWE champion’s finger throughout their match at Extreme Rules before locking in his trusty Coquina Clutch submission.
In the end, Kingston delivered Trouble In Paradise – a move that has recently become the most devastating finisher in WWE – to pick up a hard-fought victory over “The Samoan Submission Machine”.
Moving forward, it is uncertain whether Joe will remain in the WWE Championship picture or whether a new name from Raw or SmackDown Live will step up and challenge Kingston ahead of the SummerSlam pay-per-view on August 11.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at five opponents who we could see the New Day member face next.
#5 Samoa Joe
Samoa Joe has lost all eight world title matches that he has competed in as a member of WWE’s main roster, failing to win the Universal Championship from Brock Lesnar (x2) and the WWE Championship from AJ Styles (x4), Daniel Bryan (x1) and Kofi Kingston (x1).
It is difficult to see where the former NXT champion goes from here in the coming months, especially as he also lost the United States Championship to Ricochet three weeks ago at Stomping Grounds.
Based on the record that he has in world title matches, there is no way that Joe deserves another opportunity against Kingston. However, based on the strong build-up to Sunday’s Extreme Rules encounter, it would not be all that surprising if WWE extended this rivalry by adding more Superstars to the storyline before SummerSlam.