Sami Zayn’s mouth wrote a check his body couldn’t cash on Raw (Dec.4), resulting in a beatdown that was almost two years in the making.
On Monday night, Zayn came face-to-face with Drew McIntyre, interrupting the former WWE Champion, who was in the middle of airing his recent set of grievances with the state of affairs in WWE. McIntyre took control of the situation by reminding Zayn and the world what type of person Zayn had been in the past.
That didn’t sit well with the former El Generico, whose seemingly holier-than-thou attitude led him to question if McIntyre’s family was proud of the Scottish Warrior’s recent behavior.
Big mistake.
McIntyre then called for the referee, and once the bell rang, it didn’t long for Zayn to receive his long-overdue comeuppance. Zayn, who suffered a (kayfabe) knee injury during the match, got wiped out by a Claymore Kick, allowing McIntyre to pick up the victory. Once backstage, McIntyre pulverized Zayn some more, stomping on his injured knee, while shouting at Zayn that he had brought this on himself by talking about McIntyre’s family.
In his recent crusade to right the wrongs in his career, McIntyre has shared his frustrations with having been screwed over by the Bloodline multiple times. On Raw, McIntyre recalled when Zayn went to Roman Reigns and the Usos to snitch on McIntyre’s plans to take down Reigns and his family. Months later, Zayn would ingratiate himself to Reigns by taking a bullet for The Tribal Chief, preventing McIntyre from fully getting to the Undisputed Universal Champion before their encounter at Clash at the Castle.
Later on Raw, McIntyre continued his vigilante crusade by disposing of Seth Rollins before sending Jey Uso crashing through a table following their world title match. During the attack, announcer Michael Cole referred to McIntyre as delusional and remorseless as a packed house at the MVP Arena in Albany, NY, booed a righteous man with a legitimate ax to grind.
Regardless of how one views the television characters of Drew McIntyre and Sami Zayn, the two men kicked off Raw with fire and emotion that furthered McIntyre’s character, which is a spin on Bret Hart’s 1997 saga of being a good man in a bad world. Essentially, McIntyre is right in his beliefs but is rejected by the public and those around him as his protests grow louder.
As for Zayn, it has been this writer’s opinion for almost a year that Zayn is a true villain in WWE; watching McIntyre annihilate