WWE News: Huge Championship Match Set For First WWE Raw Of 2018
Dec 30, 2017 at 1:47 PM
The Wrestlemania season is all set to start with the 31st anniversary of the Royal Rumble PPV looming upon us. The hype is bigger than ever with Monday Night Raw getting hosted on December 25th and January 1st on live television for the first time. Also to be noted is that the 25th anniversary of the flagship show is also set to be hosted four weeks from now.
So, the New Year is expected to kick-off with a bang as the General Manager of the show came up with a huge announcement. As noted on Twitter, Roman Reigns will be defending his Intercontinental Championship as he does it on a weekly basis. However, this time the capacity will be very different.
His opponent will be none other than Samoa Joe who has already built quite a big rift against him that is causing in this match. Also, the match will be contested with an added stipulation which states that if the champion disqualifies himself intentionally, then he will lose the title, automatically.
On the first #Raw of 2018 @WWERomanReigns will defend his #ICTitle against @SamoaJoe; if Roman is DQ’ed, he’ll lose the match AND his title
— Kurt Angle (@RealKurtAngle) December 29, 2017
This came as a precautionary step from the show-runner as The Big Dog was fired up, last week while seeking vengeance against the Samoan Submission Machine. So, he went for a relentless attack on Joe leading the match to be called off. This upcoming week, Reigns has to be very careful about this since he can lose the title on the very first day of the year 2018.
With that being said, the odds are heavily stacked against the reigning title-holder. Being the cunning opponent that Samoa Joe is, he will try to intimidate his opponent to get hot-headed leading to the disqualification. Also, the members of The Bar will also try to interfere in this to do the same.
This time around, the remaining two members of The Shield will not be able to help Reigns out since Dean Ambrose is out of action for nine months with an injury. Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan, on the other hand, are the WWE Raw tag team champions and continue to keep the momentum on their side.