A few months ago after Sami Zayn broke away from The Bloodline, there were many fans pushing to see him be inserted in the WrestleMania 39 main event with Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes. Some even compared it to the Bryan Danielson situation in 2014 where WWE changed its WrestleMania plans after CM Punk walked out and went with the momentum behind Danielson.
At the time, it was reported that WWE, mainly Triple H and Vince McMahon never saw Zayn as a main eventer.
Fightful Select spoke with a WWE higher up regarding this notion and noted that “t the company has been ecstatic about Zayn’s performance and crowd reactions.”
“He’s headlined a PPV, he is the focal point of our biggest shows. He’s main eventing WWE Raw and is “1B” for the biggest storyline in the company. Elimination Chamber didn’t happen in his hometown by accident. For anyone to say that we don’t view him as a top guy just hasn’t been watching the program or are fabricating things. We had a solid set of plans in order both for him and the championship. Just because he isn’t competing for the championship, doesn’t mean he isn’t viewed at that level. He’s been the MVP since last Summer, and I couldn’t see many disagreeing with that point,” the source said.
WWE has been planning to do Kevin Owens and Zayn vs. The Usos for the Tag Team Titles since last November, according to internal documents. This same WWE higher up spoke well of Zayn and praised him for being easy to work with during this push.
In fact, Zayn was said to have improvised his pre-Elimination Chamber promo.
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