Hello and welcome to get the table, another wrestling round table discussion podcast with myself Adam Wilburn and the deadly boys of what culture Michael Hamplet and Michael Sidwick here to discuss another burning wrestling issue and that issue today is how WWE should solve its Sami Zayn problem.

Now before we dive into this, I should point out we are recording this before Smackdown this evening,

it's about the fact that we know this is going to come out over the weekend so some stuff may have changed following Smackdown but I think regardless of whatever happens tonight Hamplet, this is one of the best storylines WWE has done in years isn't it?

Yeah, it's worth us early moving to ask people kindly to put the pitchforks and flamin' torches away if they've read that title and issued any of us collectively or individually or unhappy with this tremendous bit of business that WWE have created here.

It's a nice problem to have for WWE for a change, it's known as a selection headache in football where you have two potentially great things and which one do you go with, we've got this with WrestleMania and it's all as a result of yeah, the finest storyline WWE have crafted across the board in years, years and years and years maybe even decades.

It's got long standing fans like myself questioning where it ranks and like your all time top fives but even newer fans just realizing how good not just WWE or Sports Entertainment but pro wrestling can be.

If you're new to this and you've seen your favourites ascend, I think a lot about CM Punk's run in 2011 or Becky Lynch's in 2019 where you've seen your favourites send to the top of the mountain and you've watched how awkward and strange and nervous that is just to see your favourites achieve something this is different gravy.

Like you're watching a storyline developing ways you can't predict it in ways you can't imagine, you'll be instructed to enjoy your favourite in Sami Zayn like trying to shuffle through this very difficult situation you've found yourself in.

There are also being asked to ask questions of everybody else in the story to get a moment like what we got Saturday's Royal Rumble is how this is always supposed to be, the pops can't always be as loud, the drama can't always be as high.

Fundamentally every wrestling storyline should aim for this sort of narrative development, these twists and turns and the cool matches that you get in the London as well.

And the intriguing thing as well, as we were heading towards last weekend's Royal Rumble, I think a lot of people were concerned about how Sami may affect how Cody's received for example when in the Royal Rumble, how the Royal Rumble itself is, what goes on in the Kevin Owens match, they really did manage to plot this out beautifully.

It was utterly phenomenal, it's not often I get the chance to really really put over with earnest genuine sincere passion, something WWE does, I don't want to chill for them, I don't want to do it for the sake of it, I don't want to do it for the sake of engagement, forever it's worth in this space, I like to think that if nothing else people can hate me for it but I will believe every single opinion that I hold and the opinion I hold of this storyline is that it's phenomenal.

And at this point I'm trying to put into tears where exactly it fits in the entire canon of modern post 1984 WWE, things like the Summer of Punk complete disaster after the best possible start.

As Hamlet says something like the Yes movement would have been so much better had you not felt the anxiety yes of is this actually going to happen that anxiety informed the elation of WrestleMania 30 which I attended in person and was amazing but if you go back and watch that week to week it was such an oppressive viewing experience they in fact had no designs on having it reach a satisfying feel good conclusion.

Until CM Punk walked out of quit watching WWE and this is him saying and XT was there and they're lucky it was I would have quit in 2013 which is so impressive in roster it was depressing you got called a B plus player every single week it wasn't a storyline they worked themselves into a shoot with that and it took Batista's rejection CM Punk's exit it was not in the plans all along so that is discarded even though yes on this weird warped level yeah

that anxiety did make the main event of WrestleMania 30 some of my favorites in recent years just to see how far away we are from them doing something like this I loved is a self contained story the CM Punk versus Jeff Hardy feud of 2009 beginning to end lovely conclusion until the undertaker ruined it was a really great bit of business with forward thinking it was elegantly crafted the emotion was there.

So easy to believe because the performers involved believed in it so that was a tremendous bit of business show Michaels versus Chris Jericho yeah so that same year of the year before 2008 2008 so yeah one year 2008 and the Batista Triple Edge unbelievable bit of business I think this is probably a little bit better than all of those and is it Austin McMahon has this weird thing where it just fizzled out and ended terribly but entertaining as

all hell is sort of weirdly affected as it is you couldn't go back and watch it in the same way the whole ability to separate art from artists and all the rest of it is it Randy Savage in the late 80s arc tear in early 90s it has the same kind of emotional resonance in terms of the baby phase turn of the heel turn and how intricately it was mapped out I think we're looking at that level that is got such a legacy and I know we're probably going to go longer than is necessary on this

podcast but as I said it's not often I earnestly get the chance to put something over it's just so great. Sami Zayn was never a bad guy so it never scans as this really sharp sudden pivot where it's so binary in terms of black and white these kind of like just useless character

not useless but very basic only in wrestling are people so on one side of a character alignment and it is a bit silly. Sami Zayn just wanted to belong because he has spent his career getting tormented and manipulated and beaten down by this guy with whom he has a symbiotic relationship and Kevin Owens and if you want to think broadly about this and deeply into it and I do that's what I like about my own

interpretation of what professional wrestling is it makes Sami all the more sympathetic loyal this incredible baby phase that this storyline with the bloodline is intertwined with Kevin Owens thing in that he was so loyal that he wanted to save Kevin Owens who realistically does not deserve it that character because that's how good of a person he is and they've definitely plotted this entire saga to reach this point where Sami Zayn at this point

is the ultimate baby phase and it's just been majestic and I guess the fact that we are calling or at least I'm calling Sami Zayn at this point in the story the ultimate baby phase does that ruin the chances of the standing of another baby phase that WWE is going all the way with we exactly that's why we're calling this the Sami Zayn problem there's nothing like you say selection headache whatever you want to call there's nothing inherently bad about this but it does have the potential to not necessarily ruin but certainly money the water

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