AEW Star Believes Sami Zayn Losing At Elimination Chamber Elevated Zayn
A current AEW star believes, that despite losing in his attempt to become WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion, that Sami Zayn was successful at Elimination Chamber.
Sami Zayn faced off against Reigns in the main event of Elimination Chamber, taking place in his home town of Montreal.
Whilst he was unable to dethrone The Tribal Chief, Zayn’s performance and the crowd reaction have “elevated him to another level” according to Matt Hardy.
Speaking about the match on the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy revealed that he feels it was right for WWE to stay with plans for Reigns to defend against Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania, and that the success of Sami Zayn has created another “legitimate world champion level competitor”.
“I think the call to go with Cody and let him be the guy to defeat Roman, I think that’s the way to go. I think it’s the right move and I don’t think it hurts Sami one bit. If anything, that loss elevated Sami. It didn’t hurt him. It helped him.
Also, you have a built-in competitor for Cody down the road with Sami. They can have a match. Sami is a legitimate world champion level competitor right now following this thing with The Bloodline. It truly elevated him to another level.
They did right by Sami and it was the right call. I fully believe it was the right call.”
Sami Zayn is continuing in his goal to take down The Bloodline and on last week’s Raw, reached out to Kevin Owens in an attempt to reconcile through having a common enemy.
The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes is chasing down his own destiny, with a main event match scheduled at WrestleMania. Rhodes is looking to fulfil his dream of lifting WWE’s main Championship and securing an even greater legacy for his family name.
Matt Hardy feels that Rhodes success in AEW has helped create the opportunity for a successful time in WWE, pointing to matches with Seth Rollins last year as showcasing how far WWE are ready to push the grandson of a plumber.
“Cody has been an investment by WWE. Obviously, he was an investment when you saw that he had that injury and he still went into Hell in the Cell and he defeated Seth Rollins three matches straight.
It was very obvious they had big plans for Cody Rhodes. It’s amazing because Cody is a guy who left Alexandria, went to the outside, built himself up, helped found AEW and made it into a big deal and an actual number two pro wrestling company on the globe.”
“He ends up leaving there and coming back to WWE and now he has all this equity, and they were definitely going to capitalize on that. I think the people kind of see Cody as a bit of a rebel because he left WWE on his own accord to go out and do his own thing and prove himself, and they always respect people when they do that”
H/t to WrestlingNews