Dave Meltzer has reported that WWE has no plans of stripping the WWE Tag Team Championship from Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, despite both of them being injured.
Meltzer wrote in the August 14th edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE has no intentions of stripping the WWE Tag Team Championships from Zayn and Owens, even though both superstars are currently sidelined with injuries.
According to Meltzer, Zayn has a swollen elbow due to a suspected bursa sac infection, which is why on Raw in a backstage segment Zayn was attacked by JD McDonagh.
Kevin Owens is also currently sidelined with an injury and was booked in a beat-down angle on the July 24th Raw, where The Judgement Day laid out Owens so that he can take time off to heal his injury, which is suspected to be a fractured rib. Meltzer wrote:
Zayn has an elbow swollen like a golf ball which is why they did the angle on Raw where Judgment Day took him out. The injury that would cause that would be bursitis or a bursa sac infection. Owens is injured as well but he was given time off to let his broken rib get a rest and the plan wasn’t to take the tag titles off them.
It is fairly common in wrestling that when champions are shelved with injuries that they are stripped of their titles so that new champions can be crowned and the championship can continue to be featured and defended on television and live events.
However, it appears that WWE’s decision not to strip the titles from Zayn and Owens due to their injuries signifies that the company doesn’t believe that their absence and not being able to feature the Tag Team Championships will have a massive negative impact on its programming.
When Did Sami Zayn And Kevin Owens Win The WWE Tag Team Championship?
Zayn and Owens won the WWE Tag Team Championship from The Usos at WrestleMania 39. Since they won the titles they have been able to defend them five times, fending off competitors such as The Bloodline, Imperium and The Judgement Day.