Sami Zayn made his main roster debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble as the No. 20 entrant in the 30-man battle royal on January 24, 2016. The former NXT champion would then to the WWE developmental roster for nearly two months before returning to the March 7 edition of Monday Night Raw to protect Neville who was being attacked by Kevin Owens.
Since Zayn’s debut, it’s become quite apparent that WWE doesn’t quite know what to do with the former NXT star. They began by having him feud with Owens, but that rivalry kind of died off on its own after Owens was victorious at Payback. The two did fight again at Battleground where Zayn beat Owens, but that proved to be an outlier rather than reigniting their previous feud.
Sami was given a chance to compete in a fatal four-way match at Extreme Rules for the Intercontinental Championship, but that match was ultimately won by The Miz who retained his title.
A few weeks later, Zayn qualified for the 2016 Money in the Bank ladder match, but Dean Ambrose would go on to grab the briefcase and the guaranteed WWE Championship contract.
On July 19, Sami Zayn was drafted by Monday Night Raw during the WWE Draft and it seemed like the perfect time to finally give the 32-year-old a push. Unfortunately, he’s largely remained in anonymity aside from defeating the Dudley Boyz with Neville as his tag-team partner on the WWE SummerSlam Kickoff Show and losing to Chris Jericho at WWE Clash of Champions.
Over the last six weeks, Zayn has finally gotten some regular run on Monday Night Raw as he’s started a feud with Braun Strowman. Prior to feuding with Sami, Strowman was destroying local talent on a weekly basis before moving on to Sin Cara after he disrespected the Luchadors.
Braun disposed of Sin Cara which earned him a 1-on-3 handicap match the following week against more local talent, which he won easily. Strowman was then confronted by Sami Zayn and the two were scheduled to have a match on the October 24 edition of Raw.
That match never actually took place as the two attacked each other prior to the bell ringing. The two were both entered into a battle royal on the October 31 edition of Raw in order to determine who would be the final member of Team Raw for the men’s match at Survivor Series. Strowman would go on to eliminate Zayn in order to clinch that final spot.
Sami then got an opportunity to face The Miz at Survivor Series for the Intercontinental Championship which would’ve brought the title over to Raw. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the job done as The Miz retained and Zayn ended up renewing his feud with Braun Strowman on the November 21st edition of Raw.
Strowman beat Zayn to a pulp which led to Raw general manager Mick Foley ending the match after he deemed that Sami was defenseless. This infuriated Zayn which led to him attacking Braun following Strowman’s victory over R-Truth on last night’s show. Yet again, Braun took control of Sami and Foley was forced to come out to keep Strowman from decapitating the Canadian.
This move infuriated Sami Zayn and it led to a pretty intense argument between Zayn and Foley in the middle of the ring. In fact, it was so intense that Foley lost his teeth during the segment.
Almost immediately, SmackDown Live general manager Daniel Bryan attempted to take advantage of the situation and sent a recruiting pitch to Sami via Twitter.
It remains to be seen whether Sami would actually want to leave or Raw, or even be allowed, but from an outsider’s perspective, it would make a lot of sense.
[Featured Image by WWE]