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After a rather absurd episode of RAW, we had a slightly better SmackDown Live. The highlight of the show was Kofi Kingston as he defended his WWE Championship once again.
This time, however, it was against RAW Superstars AJ Styles and Sami Zayn, unlike yesterday, where he had to defend his title against a SmackDown Superstar on RAW.
The other highlight of the show was Daniel Bryan and Rowan being crowned as the SmackDown Live Tag Team Champions, as it was completely unexpected and a good decision.
However, this article is not about that. Instead, it is about Sami Zayn being given a shot at the WWE Title on SmackDown last night – something not many had expected.
So why did WWE do that? Here are 5 theories…
#5 Change
What has Sami Zayn been doing ever since he returned from injury? He comes out to the ring and then proceeds to go on a rant about how the WWE fans are just terrible people and are not good for anything at all.
In the first few weeks, it felt good – simply because most of the things he said was right. Secondly, Zayn is an exceptional talent when it comes to cutting promos and his top-notch work on the mic easily manipulates the crowd.
But after weeks of doing the same thing – even if it is done by the best – monotony hits in and you don’t necessarily enjoy it, regardless of how well it is executed.
The same thing was happening with Zayn. Even though he is brilliant, fans were getting bored of the same things he was spewing every single week.
As a result, a change was needed and WWE gave us just that when they put him in a title match against Kingston and AJ Styles.
#4 Redemption
Before SmackDown Live, what was the last image of Sami Zayn that we had? Being put into a dumpster. As he was once again getting on the nerves of the fans on Monday Night Raw by calling them cowards, Braun Strowman appeared in his usual monstrous fashion and chased Zayn all around the arena.
Finally, when the Monster Among Men laid his hands on Zayn, he threw him in a dumpster which was later cleared by a dumpster truck, adding more insult to injury.
In fact, Kofi Kingston even mocked Zayn over the incident as he claimed that that Canadian was smelling bad on Tuesday. It doesn’t bode well for a star of Zayn’s caliber to be ridiculed like this.
As a result, giving him a title shot was a way to redeem his image after it was – literally – thrown into the trash.
#3 In-ring action
Ever since Zayn’s return, all he has been doing is criticizing and mocking the fans during promos. In terms of in-ring action, he has only had one televised match, which was in a losing effort against Finn Balor – and that was about a month ago.
As a result, it has been a while since he has been in the ring and it was about time to give some in-ring action after weeks of rambling on the microphone on how terrible the WWE fanbase is.
#2 KO factor
Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens might have been rivals but they are also great friends. In fact, during the Triple Threat WWE Championship match when Kevin Owens came to attack Xavier Woods, the commentator stated that the two were best friends.
Since Kevin Owens is embroiled in a feud with Kingston for the WWE Championship, it makes sense to add his best friend to add an extra layer to the feud.
#1 To eat the pin
Not many might like this point but it is perhaps the most important reason as to why Sami Zayn was added to the match for the WWE Title. Apart from Kingston and him, the other participant was AJ Styles.
Given Styles’ reputation – combined with the fact that he is the number 1 contender for the WWE Universal Title – it would have been wrong to let AJ Styles take the loss, even if it was against the WWE Champion.
Styles is set to clash against Rollins at Money in the Bank in under 2 weeks, and making him lose to Kingston would have been a blow to his image. As a result, the safe way was to add a third wheel who could take the pin and spare AJ of the embarrassment.
And for all the reasons before this slide, WWE chose Sami Zayn.
