I don’t know when exactly Sami Zayn snapped but he’s fully snapped now. Losing the Undisputed Title to CM Punk clearly broke something in him and instead of doing the normal thing — grinding back up the card, cutting a few promos, waiting his turn — he’s decided the whole title picture gets to burn with him. Last week: slaps the belt right out of Kevin Owens’ hands mid-match. His own best friend. Cost him the title shot. Over what, pride? This week he found a way to be worse.
Friday’s SmackDown had a #1 contenders triple threat lined up — Gunther, Owens, Balor, all fighting for a shot at Punk. Genuinely good match too, until Zayn wanders out, knocks the ref down, shakes Balor’s hand for reasons nobody has explained (why Balor? no clue), and the whole thing’s ruled a no contest. Punk comes out looking for payback and gets taken out as well. Two matches, eight days, zero title shots, and Zayn hasn’t so much as touched the champion. It’s honestly kind of impressive how much damage one guy can do without winning anything.
This isn’t a slump. This is a heel turn in real time and it’s more fun than most of the actual title matches lately, not gonna lie.
So what does Aldis do with him –
#1 Bars him from the title scene entirely — possible, cleanest option, also the least fun one because the story just stops.
#2 Suspension’s the other obvious move. Indefinite, no return date, let him sit and stew for a bit before he crawls back in. Predictable but it works.
#3 Honestly though — put him in a handicap match. Punk and Owens both want a piece of him now, so let Aldis book 2-on-1. Let him get destroyed. That’s the whole appeal of the underdog gimmick, watching someone survive odds that shouldn’t be survivable, and somehow he always does.
None of this is confirmed by the way, this is just me reading tea leaves off two segments. Triple H’s team could zag completely and do something none of us are guessing right now, they’ve done it before. But right now, without holding a single title, Zayn’s turned into the most dangerous name in the whole picture. That’s not an easy thing to pull off.
Punk’s reign was supposed to be about who could beat him for the belt. At this point nobody’s even trying — they’re just trying to survive Sami.
Leave a Reply