For months now Sami Zayn has been one of the most talked about Superstars in WWE and there was a lot of anticipation heading into his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match with Roman Reigns at Elimination Chamber. Many people were hoping to see Sami defeat Reigns and capture the championship, but when it was all said and done Roman Reigns retained.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting that the argument was that even though Sami Zayn has been a consistent ratings mover the ratings Sami Zayn is drawing are in conjunction with The Bloodline. WWE questioned if Sami would draw ratings outside of the storyline.
It was also noted that Roman Reigns is the franchise in WWE’s eyes so there was no way he wasn’t going to main event WrestleMania. WWE could have done a three way for WrestleMania, or booked a finish to set up a rematch at Mania, but they decided to stay the course.
The Bloodline are still top merchandise sellers, and Cody Rhodes is hot as well, but the Reigns vs. Zayn storyline has been the hottest feud during WrestleMania season. There was fear that the fans would chant for Sami during the Cody Rhodes segment with Paul Heyman on Raw, but that didn’t happen as WWE did the promo so that there was no downtime to allow the possible chants to happen.
