If the latest WWE rumors are true, somebody backstage “doesn’t like” Sami Zayn. And it’s backstage heat that may be the reason why the “Underdog from the Underground” was arguably made to look weak on the most recent episode of Monday Night RAW.
Since his early-2016 main roster debut, fans have been waiting for Sami Zayn to rise to the main event, much like his longtime NXT rival Kevin Owens did in less than a year from his first match on the main roster. But such a big-time push has been elusive for Sami, whose WWE and NXT runs have been interrupted by injuries, to say little of the difficulties he has encountered moving up in a talent-packed Monday Night RAW roster.
Most recently, Zayn was in a feud with the monstrous Braun Strowman, beating him at Roadblock: End of the Line last month in a match where he had to last 10 minutes against Strowman in order to win. In a Last Man Standing match on the January 2 RAW, Strowman was victorious over Zayn, and while the feud appears to have ended and gone in Braun’s favor, it was a bit surprising to see Strowman pin Zayn on this week’s Monday Night RAW in a six-man tag team match that also featured Owens and Chris Jericho on the heel side and Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins on the babyface side.
More importantly, there was also the matter of Sami Zayn supposedly looking weak in a segment where he appeared overenthusiastic in discussing strategy with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns and tried to recreate The Shield’s trademark pose with the stable’s two former members. As he and Rollins walked away to end the segment, Reigns quipped “this guy’s crazier than (Dean) Ambrose,” and while that suggested a comedic tone to the entire segment, Dave Meltzer’s latest report on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter suggests it wasn’t just comedy but also an effort to make Zayn “come off as a loser.”
While fans reacted positively to Zayn’s “Why imitate when you can create” tweet, that wasn’t the case for his fellow WWE Superstar Tyson Kidd, who called Sami out and pointed out that the Blue Thunder Bomb was first used by Japanese wrestling legend Jun Akiyama. And it also appears that Sami Zayn’s backstage heat may also have something to do with how Zayn responded to Kidd when called out for his earlier post.
“There was another tweet from Kidd replying to a fan on twitter that said that Zayn’s comments may have been taken the wrong way. In a now-deleted tweet, Kidd said that texts he received (presumably from Zayn) would say otherwise.”
Looking at the current roster, few WWE Superstars have more in-ring and on-the-mic talent than Sami Zayn. And if the backstage heat rumors are indeed true, it might not bode well for his career in WWE going forward, as the company has been known to occasionally punish troublesome backstage personalities by making them lose more frequently, putting them in overly comedic storylines, or giving them gimmicks that aren’t meant to be taken seriously.
