The Phantom Rant: Sami Zayn Deserved Much Better

Greetings conversationalists all across the world wide web. It is I, the one and only “Phantom Lord” Joseph Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from New York City and to say last week was hot would be the understatement of the century. Luckily though it’s apparently cool now so the heat has gone down considerably which is nice. Originally I had started this column on Oba Femi winning the King of the Ring. My fears of Jey Uso winning were unfounded…so I was happy about that. What made me even happier during Night of Champions was Sami Zayn winning the WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes. Truth be told, I didn’t care who won that match just as long as Cody didn’t. But Sami was a pleasant surprise.

So of course leave it to the WWE to telegraph Sami losing on RAW Monday night. At first they set up Cody Rhodes getting his rematch after he beat Jey Uso on Smackdown on Friday night. All weekend all we could think of was “Poor Sami”. Cody was gonna get his damn title back because of course he had to. Cody Rhodes is almost in late 2000’s John Cena mode at this point where he overcomes the odds and wins back the title. Well, luckily that didn’t happen Monday night on RAW. The WWE took a hard left at the proverbial fork in the road and decided not to put the belt back on Cody as Gunther beat him up at the start of the show and Cody ended up not being “medically cleared”.

I thought Sami Zayn got a reprieve. But no, Adam Pearce was all “I promised a championship match here tonight and that’s what they’re gonna get”. Here’s where it got stupid in my view. Around the mid point of the show, Pearce was all “I can’t find anyone to face Sami”. You mean you couldn’t find one guy in the locker room who wanted a World title match? This of course led to Nick Aldis swooping in to say he found someone and they are ready. Cut to later in the night and as Sami is in the ring, the crowd has been chanting a certain someone’s name all night since they were in his hometown. The music hits and of course it’s CM Punk.

Well that’s just great. Sami Zayn was doomed. Now don’t get me wrong, the match was pretty good. It’s just the wrong guy won. Sami Zayn did not deserve to be a short run transitional champion. Now apparently according to the very reliable Wrestle Votes over on Twitter, NBC Universal has wanted Punk on Smackdown for a while now. They view him as a premier star. Well, duh…no kidding he’s a premier star. But just because he’s a top guy doesn’t mean he needs the title belt right off the bat.

I’ve seen criticism of Sami’s loss on twitter and elsewhere and it makes sense. How come Sami had to defend his title right off the bat? Rhea Ripley has been out over a month and she hasn’t had to vacate the title. Liv Morgan hasn’t defended her title at all (at least on tv…but house shows don’t count). Point is Sami Zayn was screwed over royally.

I think the WWE is blowing a golden opportunity here mostly because of their stupid perceptions. The big one that they have is that Sami Zayn is not a money player. That is a load of you know what like you wouldn’t believe. I’m thinking back to 1994 when the WWF at the time made a similar mistake. Come back with me to Survivor Series 1994 where Mr. Bob Backlund defeated Bret “The Hitman” Hart to become the new WWF World Champion. Now of course me back then, I didn’t have the advantage of seeing things in hindsight. I’ll admit when I was at Madison Square Garden three days later for that fateful night of Backlund vs. Diesel, I was rooting for the big man to win.

In hindsight though a lot of people would argue the WWF made a terrible decision to squash Backlund in eight seconds and give the belt to Big Daddy Cool. It’s not that Diesel didn’t deserve to be champion. It’s that Mr. Bob Backlund deserved better than three days as champion. Of course his moral heel persona was way ahead of it’s time for 1994 into 1995. We’re in the same situation with Sami Zayn now having lost the title. And knowing the WWE, they will push Sami Zayn to the backside because “he’s not a money player”. So we’re going to get Punk vs. Cody…because that’s been the plan all along.

Maybe Gunther vs. Cody will delay that match for like a week, but it’s clear it’s the plan and it takes something monumental to get the WWE to pivot from one of their plans. As I’ve said in the past, I have nothing against. Cody. I just want to see something different for once. Sami Zayn was that something different. He didn’t need a super long reign. He could have held the title till Summerslam and they could have still had Punk win then.

Ah well we shall see what happens on Smackdown going forth since it’s going to be CM Punk’s show. Me personally I would keep Punk and Zayn feuding. Shift Cody to face Gunther for a while.

On the otherside of the wrestling, Kenny Omega is the AEW Champion once again having defeated MJF on Dynamite. I thought it was a pretty good match. AEW is going to go full tilt into promoting Omega vs. Osprey at All In: London at Wembley Stadium. MJF vs. Osprey would have been better from a story standpoint, but it’s AEW. We all know they care more about the wrestling action over story telling. But AEW backed themselves into a corner with the stip that Omega had to win or he would never get another World title shot in AEW again. They did that to Adam Page and he hasn’t been seen since. But Omega vs. Osprey should be an amazing match when it happens next month.

On that note I am done for this week. I wish Sami Zayn was still champion, but it wasn’t to be.

As always you can leave me feedback down below, on Twitter or email me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com