Sami Zayn has been one of the top stars in WWE for some time now, but up until recently he struggled to solidify himself as a world championship caliber wrestler. However, Zayn changed the course of his career at Night of Champions when he pinned Cody Rhodes to win the Undisputed WWE Championship for the first time in his career.
Originally Sami was supposed to defend the Undisputed WWE Championship against The American Nightmare on Raw until Cody was attacked by Gunther and written out of the show. Nick Aldis then found a replacement for the title match, which turned out to be CM Punk, who defeated Sami to win the title in his first match since April.
While talking about the status of the world title picture in WWE right now on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that Sami Zayn is not considered to be a “money player” or someone the company believes can be “the guy.”
“I saw a lot of people upset about it and it was like, look, this is what it was going to be. You know that going in. They don’t really at this point in time, they do this for the undercard titles, they really don’t for the two major men’s titles.
They aren’t really passing around belts now. They really are in the hands of the people who the perception is are the money players, and Sami is not in their mind one of those people. He could have been. There was a time where he was, but even then in their minds he still wasn’t because it’s like one of those things of they’re still all brainwashed by the cosmetics in a lot of ways, and that certain people are good hands, but they can’t be the guy. Sami is one of those guys in their minds that can’t be the guy.”
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