Most of us were pretty surprised (some happily, others less so) that Sami Zayn won the WWE championship back from CM Punk in Mexico City on SmackDown last Friday.
Elated or enraged, the wrestle web spent time over the weekend speculating about why Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque and his creative team put the belt back on Zayn. Sami’s second reign is part of a year with the most WWE title changes in a decade, in case you missed Unicorse’s great Feed post from Sunday:
Back to the reason
for the latest hot potato-ing of the title to Zayn, writing from behind PWInsider’s Elite paywall, Mike Johnson reports that “the company is looking to run WWE Champion Sami Zayn vs WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns as the main event of their November Crown Jewel event.”
Crown Jewel in is in Riyadh on Nov. 7. That premium live event, you’ll recall, is built around the World champions from Raw and SmackDown fighting for the Crown Jewel title that WWE only really talks about around this PLE. Zayn is of Syrian descent and a proud Muslim, and he’s become one of WWE’s biggest babyfaces in Saudi Arabia. There’s also a ton of Bloodline history to mine with a Reigns/Zayn clash, potentially making it a much more compelling clash than Crown Jewel title feuds have been its brief history.
Another reason that Sami is champ, however, is so WWE doesn’t want to run CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns back so soon after they closed things out at WrestleMania 42. Crowning Zayn now again allows them to keep that rematch in their pocket for a future marquee event.
The Last Real Good Guy has a number of viable challengers on the blue roster, including Finn Bálor, Gunther, Johnny Gargano, and his old pal Kevin Owens. But getting to Crown Jewel as champ definitely should mean Sami’s current reign will last longer than nine days, right?
Unless Haitch books another couple title changes between now and Nov. 7…
