Sami Zayn has been arguably the most popular superstar in WWE for several months now. Ever since he began his story with Roman Reigns and The Bloodline, he has been growing with each passing week. And when Zayn turned on Reigns at the 2023 Royal Rumble, he received one of the loudest crowd pops in years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S88-Qp448Bk
Given Zayn’s massive upswell in popularity, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Bloodline’s implosion was followed with Zayn officially challenging Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at Elimination Chamber.
Since Elimination Chamber PLE is taking place in Zayn’s hometown of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, it’s expected that he will receive a monstrous ovation in his title challenge.
But despite tall of this positive momentum, fans shouldn’t expect to see Zayn reach any further up the card than where he is now.
Vince McMahon and WWE management unlikely to change WrestleMania plans despite Sami Zayn’s popularity.
Dave Meltzer noted in the most recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Sami Zayn’s popularity hasn’t affected WWE’s long-term plans. The confirmed main-event for WrestleMania 39 is still Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes.
And while there’s an argument to be made that the Reigns/Rhodes match could be pushed to a later date to make room for Reigns/Zayn, Meltzer doesn’t see that happening because neither Vince McMahon nor Triple H see Zayn as a guy that could headline an event as big as WrestleMania.
“Neither Vince McMahon nor Paul Levesque saw Zayn as a guy who could headline WrestleMania and that the scenario of Zayn challenging in Montreal and moving it to WrestleMania because he got hot, which WWE did previously for Kofi Kingston when he got hot and got the spot planned for Owens in 2019 was not going to happen.”
h/t TJRWrestling for the transcription