Sami Zayn has become arguably the most popular star in WWE and this could be about to cause a big problem.
Despite his remarkable popularity the planned WrestleMania 39 main event will see Cody Rhodes challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. This means that Zayn will have to be involved lower down the card, potentially in a tag team match with Kevin Owens against The Usos.
Zayn’s popularity reached its peak at Elimination Chamber when he took on Reigns in the main event. In fact, Zayn was such a fan favourite, many fans and critics believe he should have defeated Reigns to win the World Championship.
For weeks there has been speculation that WWE is keen to avoid a situation where fans turn their back on Cody Rhodes due to their love of Zayn. Fans famously launched something of a revolt in 2014 after Daniel Bryan found his initial route to the World Title blocked.
On the most recent episode of Raw, the first since Elimination Chamber, Cody Rhodes came to the ring for a promo segment. However, he was interrupted by Paul Heyman within seconds. Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer reported that this was done as WWE was concerned fans would turn on the American Nightmare.
He added that if fans chanted for Zayn it would hurt Rhodes’ momentum heading into WrestleMania.
“The stuff with Cody and Heyman – they (WWE) were very concerned about Sami chants, which is one of the reasons why they got Heyman out there in seconds.
They did not want Cody in there by himself because they thought that – it didn’t happen – but they did everything in their power to make sure they kept that moving, they did not allow the audience a chance to start chanting or anything like that, it was just back-and-forth.
It was designed to give the audience no chance to chant because of the feeling that if they did it would hurt Cody’s momentum.
And perhaps it would, and then it could create that groundswell (for Zayn) which is exactly what they don’t want right now.”
Sami Zayn Rejected By Kevin Owens
Raw had opened with Sami Zayn being given another monstrous ovation as he came to the ring. Zayn then brought out Kevin Owens and attempted to reconcile with his former friend to take on The Bloodline. However, Owens explained that he only got involved at Elimination Chamber for himself, not to help Zayn. He closed by saying that if Zayn wants a friend to fight The Bloodline with he should talk to his “buddy” Jey [Uso].
H/t to Wrestle Talk