Sami Zayn was originally announced to compete in the main event of WWE Monday Night Raw this week by teaming alongside World Heavyweight champion Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes against Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio, and Finn Balor of the Judgment Day.
However, JD McDonagh attacked him backstage. Shinsuke Nakamura later replaced Zayn in the match. This was due to Zayn’s bursa sac injury in his elbow.
This doesn’t look normal. Sami replaced by Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event against Judgement Day.
Is Sami Zayn legit hurt too? pic.twitter.com/4Ij9nPQbjl
— JDfromNY (@JDfromNY206) August 8, 2023
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez recapped the segment:
Alvarez: “Sami Zayn got beaten up.”
Meltzer: “That was a cover for a bursa sac injury.”
Alvarez: “Yeah. His elbow is so disgusting.”
Meltzer: “It’s so swollen.”
Alvarez: “You could literally put your own fist on the back of your elbow. That’s about how big it was.”
Meltzer: “He had a golf ball sized, yeah. Swell swelling. Yeah.”
Alvarez: “Yeah, maybe even bigger. I mean, it was gigantic. And he’s holding his elbow when they did the beat down. So I mean, he ran near at the beginning, I guess I’d have to go back and look at his elbow here in the beginning segment, which, you know, I didn’t do at the time, but man, that thing looked disgusting. Guess we’ll see how long he’s out of action for.”
Meltzer: “Yeah. I wonder what they’re gonna do with the Tag Team Titles.
Alvarez: “Yeah. I mean, Kevin, I’m sure, could work. Kevin can work Because he did work with the ribs before they did the injury.
Meltzer: “Right. The whole idea was that, since they decided not to book him for SummerSlam, I mean if he was on SummerSlam, you know, if they booked him for SummerSlam, he would’ve kept working and, and done SummerSlam. But when the decision was made not to put a tag team title match on SummerSlam, they decided to shoot an angle to get him off and give him a little bit of rest. But it was only supposed to be like a short period of rest. That’s why they didn’t take the belts off or anything like that.”
Alvarez: “I mean, Sami was brawling here, so like, if there’s an issue, I think that he could probably do a match to drop the titles. But to me, it’s like you spent all that time and you did that huge match at WrestleMania. I mean, I think they should do whatever they can to not strip them of the titles unless they absolutely have to.”
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