Sami Zayn earned the opportunity to challenge Gunther for the WWE Intercontinental Title at WrestleMania 40. However, many people would’ve rather seen Chad Gable take Zayn’s spot instead.
On a recent episode of Raw, Zayn won a WWE Intercontinental Title #1 Contendership Gauntlet Match by outlasting Bronson Reed, JD McDonaugh, Ricochet, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Gable. Many fans have wanted to see Gable not only beat Gunther but also dethrone him from his title after a long reign.
Josh Martinez of the Superstar Crossover Podcast, Zayn, talked about Booker T’s recent comments that he was upset over fan reaction to his big win over Gable.
“Well, I was a little surprised to read that. Because I basically bumped into Booker on the plane. And we were just, you know, we were sitting next to each other. So we’re just talking. So it’s pretty weird to see it on the internet. And I was like, Yeah, I was very pleased with the match. It’s just unfortunate that it felt like the reaction to the win itself was a little split, if not a little more skewed towards Chad, even because we did such a great job of building chat. And he’s done a great job of building himself. You know, for sure, and when you’re a good guy, or whatever, or bad guy, and you know where you’re headed. You just want the full investment, right? You want the full scope of audience emotional investment. And I felt like this was an interesting story because it splits the emotional investment in two. So you’re only getting 50% of the pie, right? So that’s just an interesting dynamic. It’s certainly interesting because it makes it more compelling. But for sure, as a guy whose job is to rally the entire audience behind them, which is what I sometimes feel like my job is as a good guy. I was a little let down that I felt like I couldn’t get the entire audience to rally behind me.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Superstar Crossover Podcast with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
