wrestling / Columns

Sami Zayn Is Not An Evil Person

October 12, 2017 | Posted by Steve Cook
Sami Zayn WWE Smackdown 101017 Image Credit: WWE

Most people thought that what Sami Zayn did at Hell in a Cell constituted a heel turn.

You would have thought so. After all, Kevin Owens had done all sorts of horrible things to the McMahon family over the past several weeks. He beat Shane up a couple of times. He headbutted and frog splashed Shane’s father. He talked a whole lot of trash about Shane & had the unmitigated gall to mention his kids. Heck, he tried to end Sami’s career a couple of weeks earlier when he powerbombed him on the apron and wrapped a chair around his throat.

Hell in a Cell was Shane’s opportunity to shut the big bully up.

So when Sami Zayn saved the big bully from certain doom, we all wondered why he would do such a thing. It went against everything he stood for over his entire career. Heck, Sami didn’t even have a heel run to speak of during his career in the independents. He’s always been on the side of right. In a company where very few wrestlers do the right thing all the time, Sami Zayn could honestly say he did the right thing all the time.

Why did he break bad? Sami explained himself Tuesday night on SmackDown Live.

Everything Sami said was 100% correct. He played the good guy throughout his career. He tried to please us. And it got him to a nice little mid-card slot in WWE. Nothing spectacular.

Sami found himself in the Tito Santana spot. You older folks in the audience remember Tito. He was the ultimate good guy in the 1980s WWF. He had himself a nice mid-card slot. He’d get a random title reign here or there. But Tito was most known for being the gatekeeper. If you could beat Tito Santana, you were heading to big things. If you couldn’t beat Tito Santana…you weren’t going anywhere. Tito was popular with the crowd, but he was never really a threat to do anything important.

WWF management never needed to worry about Tito either. He was always good for whatever. Put that guy over? No problem. Team with that guy? All right. Have Bobby Heenan & Jesse Ventura make fun of his ethnicity during his matches? Hey, as long as it’s funny!

Sami’s not wired that way. He wants more out of his career. He could only take so much of being ignored by management.

He also has a great example in Kevin Owens.

Owens’ success since entering WWE can’t be denied. He’s held almost every major championship since his arrival to the main roster in 2015. He had Triple H as his mentor. (How does Triple H feel about all this anyway?) It had to be tough for Sami to sit there and watch a man he considers his brother get all of these opportunities while he sat on the sidelines & watched. Despite all the ups & downs, there was still a connection between the two. Hey, friendships are complicated.

Mick Foley wrote in one of his fifty-seven books about how Michael Hayes taught him that the best heels are the ones that feel completely justified in their actions. I think hardcore fans have misunderstood this over the years. You see Twitter & Facebook & message boards going crazy over heels and supporting their actions because they’re justified. Their rivals had these terrible actions coming to them, after all. Part of the weakness is WWE’s inability to book effective babyfaces. We don’t feel sorry for these people because there’s no real reason to.

The thing is that a truly great heel’s actions should be justified…to them. They shouldn’t be justified to anybody else.

Were the Four Horsemen justified in breaking Dusty Rhodes’ leg in the Omni, or his arm in a parking lot? Were the New World Order justified in beating the entire WCW roster down every single week for months on end? Was Jake Roberts justified in having a king cobra bite Randy Savage, or when he slapped Elizabeth?

Of course not. None of these things had to happen. None of the victims deserved these calamities to befall them. They happened because the perpetrators were terrible people.

Sami Zayn did a good job of justifying his actions on Tuesday night. He did too good a job in order to be a true bad guy. Which is fine. Because he isn’t one.

Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at SmackDown Live’s management. They seem like decent guys, sure. Daniel Bryan has performed admirably in his role as General Manager when he’s been around. But then you have Shane, a Commissioner that’s constantly getting into physical disputes with his employees. His father, the owner of WWE, encourages this behavior. And don’t even get me started with the list of evil things that Vince & Shane have done over the years.

They’re very good at convincing people that they’re nice guys. Shane, especially, comes off much more likeable than anybody else in his family. But when you take a look at how he’s conducted himself with Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn, there’s only one conclusion to draw…

Sami Zayn didn’t turn heel on Sunday night.

article topics :

Sami Zayn, WWE, Steve Cook