Three wrestlers who should've ended Samoa Joe's ROH TV title reign

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This past week on AEW Dynamite, Samoa Joe retained the Ring of Honor Television title against Keith Lee, then promptly relinquished the belt, after winning it five hundred and seventy four days ago and defending it eighteen times. I suppose my biggest question would be is Joe giving up the title after so long not defeating the entire fucking point of long title reigns? Time and again we've been told that the biggest benefit of a long title reign is that the person who finally defeats the champion has accomplished something important. Look at when Orange Cassidy recently lost the International title to Jon Moxley in a match that meant so much because of Orange's run that it main-evented a pay per view. With all of this in mind, here are three realistically possible wrestlers who you could have done some good for by having them defeat Samoa Joe.

Before I begin, I want to know your names who could realistically, have been the one to topple Samoa Joe for the TV title, so tell me in the comments.

1) Mark Briscoe

For a while before Mark suffered a knee injury that kept him out of action for the past few months, Mark Briscoe was on a bit of a quest to win singles gold in Ring of Honor. Admittedly he had moved his attention to Claudio Castagnoli and the World title, and was even set to challenge Claudio at Death Before Dishonor before having to pull out due to his injury, but before that Mark had previously challenged Samoa Joe at the previous pay per view, Supercard of Honor. On that night, Briscoe even had his family at ringside to hopefully see him win singles gold, but sadly Joe put an end to his dreams that night. At the time I felt that you could do so much more following this match to continue the story, and create a massive feel good moment had Mark finally dethroned Joe.

Before I move on, I'd like to share with you a quote from a recent interview Mark did for Sports Illustrated in regards to his in ring return on this weeks Dynamite, possibly the best quote I've read in quite a while. Speaking about returning from injury, Mark said "I've been waiting to scratch this itch ever since I went out with the knee. I've been waiting, and I don't particularly handle all that free time too well. Next thing you know, my wife is pregnant." Mark already has seven kid by the way, thats a lot of injuries...

2) Lance Archer

Thats not all that much to this one, take one big scary dude you're not doing much with, and another big scary dude you're not doing a bit more with, and turn them loose. In Lance's case, he is someone who AEW has chronically not had many plans for. Having entered the company right before the pandemic, Lance has according to AEW's roster page has a sixty-three to sixteen win loss record. Thats seventy nine matches since his first for the promotion against Marko Stunt in April 2020. To put that into some context by comparing it to others who had their first AEW match around this time, Matt Hardy who joined AEW around the same time has had ninety eight matches, and Orange Cassidy who's first was in February 2020 has had one hundred and sixty two. February was when Wardlow's in ring debut happened too, and he's has had ninety-one, though admittedly has also had three TNT championships to his name as well. To be clear, I mean none of this to knock Lance Archer. I'm a fan of him, and just hope to see him doing more.

To be fair as well, there are some caveats to these stats, for example Lance did return to New Japan a few times, even taking extensive time away to compete in the 2022 G1 Climax. Also this year Lance has been dealing with a tricep injury that has stunted his progress this year. it just feels like more should have been done with him by now, at least a TNT title reign or something. Lance entered AEW with a bang, being a key figure in the tournament to crown the first TNT champion, making it to the finals at Double or Nothing against Cody Rhodes, and it's hard to pin point another major storyline he's been involved in since then. Honestly and sadly, there are a few names I could have included here and made a similar argument. Miro being chief among them, but also Malakai and Wardlow too.

3) Eddie Kingston

We've gotten this far into the video and I haven't even mentioned the reason Samoa Joe gave for giving back the ROH TV title, and to be honest there was a reason for that. Joe claimed in his post match promo that he wished to set his sights on the AEW World title, which he recently had a shot at and lost to MJF. Technically he's had two shots, but the "real" world title he challenged for in Wembley Stadium is probably sitting in CM Punk's fridge right now.

What if, instead of focusing on the AEW World title, Joe set his sights on the ROH World title instead? What if Samoa Joe, still maintaining his record setting reign decided to challenge for another belt he already owns the record for? Samoa Joe first won the ROH World title in March 2003, and held it for six hundred and forty five days, making him by far the longest reigning ROH World champion ever, and the longest reigning TV champion now too. How awesome a Final Battle 2023 main event could that have been? It would put Eddie Kingston in an interesting position, as the current ROH World champion, yet still the underdog in the eyes of many.

Given that I'm calling for Eddie to beat Joe here, you could even take this opportunity to unify the ROH World and TV titles. They already have the Pure championship, and all the belts AEW has, and maybe we could do to have one less, and this would be a great time to do it, in the main event of ROH's next pay per view.

What do you think of my picks? Do you have any of your own? Let me know in the comments. Thank you for your time, and if you liked this video please consider liking or subscribing.