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What's the story?
On Tuesday's SmackDown Live we saw Daniel Bryan announce his return to in-ring competition and also fire Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for attacking Shane McMahon. As a result, the Owens Vs Zayn match was dropped from the Mania card and both of their Superstar profiles were removed from the website.
In case you didn't know...
On the previous SmackDown Live, Shane McMahon announced he was taking some time away from WWE after booking Owens Vs Zayn at WrestleMania. This led to Zayn and Owens brutally attacking the McMahon family member
This was a fate shared by Daniel Bryan when he fired Owens and Zayn for the above attack, causing the pair to turn on him and attack him. The night ended with Bryan taking an Apron Powerbomb and being stretchered out as Owens and Zayn looked on distraught at their own actions.
The heart of the matter
It seems like great lengths are being taken to sell the consequences of Zayn and Owens being fired with their match officially being dropped and their profiles being removed from the website, but that's not all.
Kevin Owens has also changed his Twitter handle to Kevin Steen (@FightSteenFight) and has removed all references to WWE from his Twitter account, to further add to the storyline 'firing' he received.
Kevin Steen is the name that Kevin Owens used while he was on the independent wrestling circuit, so him going back to that name after being released from WWE makes sense. It also, however, has meant that Owens has dropped his Twitter Verified status all to serve the storyline!
Sami Zayn is still currently verified as a WWE Superstar on Twitter. But that might be because his independent wrestling alter-ego, El Generico, is reportedly dead.
What's next?
It seems all but certain that Daniel Bryan will team up with Shane McMahon to take on Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a tag-team match at WrestleMania. We'll have to see how we get there over the next two weeks.
Author's take
The WWE really does pull out all the stops in the WrestleMania build-up and I really like it. Little things like Owens actually changing his Twitter really help to make storylines seem real, even if both he and Sami Zayns clearly haven't actually been fired.
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