
I said many times that I have a Love/Hate relationship with Brock Lesnar. I’ve seen many fantastic matches where he fought Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, Triple H and others, but there have been a lot of terrible matches with Lesnar as well. the bad matchres consist of German Suplexes followed by an F5 and sprints to the finish of the match. A lot of high spots that get a quick reaction, but nothing long lasting.
This match was a bad Lesnar match in reverse. Slow, painfully slow. To the point where I questioned if Sami Zayn is even a good wrestler anymore. Zayn’s last couple of years in the WWE have been more theatrical than focusing on in ring ability. Yes, he was great in NXT, but I would say the most impressive thing he did on the main roster was his feud with Braun Strowman in 2016, which was 7 years ago. Since then, he has been bottom tier on the roster, lackluster feuds and essentially struggling to hold any type of spotlight. This could very well be the first time watching a wrestler be elevated to potential WrestleMania Championship match based on emotional storytelling and not in ring ability.
All this match did was show that Roman Reigns can command an arena doing very little wrestling. Roman yelled at the crowd, yelled at Zayn’s wife, mouthed off to Zayn’s father, yelled at the crowd again. Every now and then Zayn caught Reigns monologuing and took advantage, but not for long. It felt like watching a retirment match where Zayn’s career was on the line and we saw glimpses of great moments from his past.
Of course the referee went down, bringing in Jimmy Uso to Superkick Zayn until the ref woke up. The Jey Uso hesitation with the chair was interesting, but makes me wonder if this is leading to Jey and Zayn winning the tag titles, which wouldn’t surprise me, but would be an immense letdown of storytelling. Zayn winning the title from Reigns is the only outcome that makes sense. Anything else is a massive letdown.
So what did this match accomplish? That Zayn isn’t at the level that Reigns is? That the fans will chant for you more if your parents had unprotected sex in that city? This feud is over to me. Obviously, we have WrestleMania and an unfinished Jey Uso moment of truth, but this is now Cody Rhode’s time.
Did they bring back Rhodes to win the Royal Rumble and not be the focal point. That we are getting a Triple Threat Match for the titles that again reiterates the fact that Zayn can’t win the big one? So now, they’re sacrificing Rhode’s potential WrestleMania moment for Zayn, when his moment should’ve been in Canada. What a waste.
Art work from Dream by Wombo AI Art
Simptastic Joe