Sami Zayn may have gotten his wish – a match against Braun Strowman at Roadblock, but his potential departure to SmackDown Live is still justified.
Sami Zayn has been making the rounds over the last few weeks on Monday Night Raw, voicing his displeasure over the way the ongoing situation between him and Braun Strowman has been handled since just after Survivor Series.
He may have his match booked for this Sunday – with an added incentive of whether or not Zayn can withstand ten minutes against the enormous athlete, which is a little insulting in fairness – but it took quite some time getting it on the line-up.
Raw General Manager, Mick Foley hasn’t been quiet about his lack of faith in Sami Zayn’s ability to get the job done on Sunday, consistently refusing the match until this week on the flagship show, when Sami Zayn essentially came to the conclusion that his efforts were being put to waste as a member of the red team.
As a result, Foley conjured up a ruse to get Zayn to stay – in the form of a fabricated agreement with Daniel Bryan to trade Sami Zayn over to SmackDown Live in exchange for Eva Marie. This got Sami Zayn angrier than ever before, and Foley encouraged him to harness that aggression because he’d need it if he wanted to survive his encounter with the beast that is Braun Strowman.
Though talks of a trade will likely be shushed, there are many of us that actually believe a deal to transfer the man over to Tuesday nights in exchange for somebody of equal worth would be the right way to go, at least as far as Sami is concerned.
There are a number of reasons why Sami Zayn would be better off as a member of the SmackDown Live roster, and they’re far too prevalent to be ignored.
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4. He Can Stop Living in Kevin Owens’ Shadow
The story of Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn has been a beautiful one, ever since Zayn ended a long and tumultuous journey to the NXT Championship, only for his best friend to cut the celebration short and stake his claim as no. 1 contender.
Since that day, Zayn and Owens have battled at the Royal Rumble, Money in the Bank and even WrestleMania, hashing out one of the most emotionally-driven rivalries in years. The feud was brought to an end – at least for the time being – at Battleground in July, when the two put on an instant classic and ended things with a bang.
Though Sami Zayn emerged victoriously, it hasn’t done him any good, as while Kevin Owens has gone on to become Raw’s biggest heel as the WWE Universal Champion, Sami still struggles to land any big-time matches on the weekly broadcast.
To make matters worse, every time he steps in the ring, Zayn’s long-time rival is brought up to tout just how unlucky he is. Competing at such a low spot while Owens is the center of attention serves as a constant reminder that things haven’t gone his way, despite all the odds tipping in Zayn’s favor when the feud came to an end.
Going to SmackDown would allow Sami Zayn a fresh start – to compete on a brand where he isn’t plagued by past encounters, and to face a different batch of competition that he can make new memories with. He could finally make a name for himself, potentially even win his first main roster championship and prove that without the burden of Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn has all the tools necessary to succeed.
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3. More Condensed Roster Instantly Makes Zayn a Star
When the draft took place, it was declared that for every two picks SmackDown Live received, the flagship show of Monday Night Raw would get three.
This made sense, because with a whole extra hour to work with, the red team needed more big names to draw in the weekly viewers than its blue counterpart.
Hence, you even saw an entirely new division be brought in once TJ Perkins had captured the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and the majority of the athletes from the CWC migrated over to Raw’s purple division on Monday nights.
As we’ve seen with the likes of Neville and Darren Young, however, being on the larger brand does not guarantee good exposure. In fact, with the cruiserweights thrown in there, it’s hard to get any air time for a good portion of the roster.
SmackDown Live, however, has it all figured out. With a much more condensed roster, and very few athletes – maybe Apollo Crews, Curt Hawkins, Eva Marie and a handful of tag teams – going without a whole lot of TV time as the weeks go by, the talent on the roster is often nicely distributed along the broadcast.
A lot of those guys are newer too, so an established name like Sami’s would have no problem getting prime positioning in either singles championship picture.
We already know he can hold his own in high stakes matches against some of SmackDown’s best athletes, namely The Miz as the two squared off at Survivor Series with the IC Title hanging in the balance, so the transitional period from red to blue would be very simple for Sami Zayn.
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2. The Promise of Opportunity
The new and improved SmackDown Live – which was marketed by Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon back in July as the “land of opportunity”, where wrestlers could achieve the goals that the old regimen would have their talents squandered under – has lived up to the hype put forward by the WWE during the summer.
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Expectations have been exceeded, and the promise of opportunity has been fruitful, to say the least. As a result, we have seen WWE Superstars like The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Heath Slater, Becky Lynch and even NXT call-ups like Alexa Bliss all receive huge opportunities – a lot of which have resulted in brand new champions crowned.
Not to mention AJ Styles, who has both defeated John Cena cleanly at SummerSlam and gone on to win the WWE Championship from Dean Ambrose at Backlash, truly cementing himself as “the champ that runs the camp”.
The fact that all of these great names have gotten the chance to shine on SmackDown Live, when they clearly hadn’t been prior to being drafted to Tuesday nights – with maybe the exception of “The Phenomenal One” – gives the clear indication that the blue brand would be the promised land for a guy like Sami Zayn who has been chomping at the bit for months just for a bit of recognition.
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1. He Can Capitalize on His Newfound Sense of Attitude
For the last several weeks since losing to The Miz at Survivor Series, and subsequently being punished with a one-on-one match against Braun Strowman – who absolutely obliterated the man within moments – Sami Zayn has been on a tear for a rematch against the behemoth at Roadblock: End of the Line.
Mick Foley’s refusal to grant Zayn the match out of fear for his well-being lit a fire inside the “underdog from the underground”, who became incensed at the way he’s been constantly treated like a lesser athlete despite all of his accomplishments.
What he took as sheer disrespect from his own General Manager, and the man that actually inspired Sami to become a professional wrestler, caused Zayn to question the worth of staying on Raw – especially when Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon have shown a vested interest in welcoming him to SmackDown Live with open arms.
This has been a welcome shift in composure for Sami Zayn, who up until now has remained calm in his approach to any story that doesn’t involve Kevin Owens.
He has desperately needed to show signs of personality for a while now, and the way he’s lost his cool with Mick Foley – which has made for some exquisite promos – has been incredibly refreshing with regards to his character presence.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned overpopulation issue, with Raw having too many cooks spoiling the broth atop the line-up, means that this newfound attitude will likely be put to waste when his rivalry with Strowman draws to a close.
A switch over to SmackDown Live would provide Sami with the platform to exert all this energy and make something useful out of it, surely delivering a number of extraordinary performances on his quest for solace in the land of opportunity.
