10 Best WWE Gimmicks Of 2017
9. Heel Sami Zayn
In which Vince McMahon lives up to the broken clock proverb.
Upon his late autumn heel turn, Sami Zayn felt compelled to adopt the token snarl of a trite villain. Vince corrected him. "Big smile out there," he instructed Sami, per the Underdog's E&C Pod Of Awesomeness appearance. The result was so perfect that it instantly muddied the idea of Sami Zayn: Pure Of Heart, Eternal Babyface. The new, slimy, insincerely magnanimous Zayn, who has modified his dancing with the hilarious lameness of a Carlton Banks, tapped into the alleged backstage irritant vein with deeply authentic and detestable aplomb.
The booking, as it so often doesn't, hasn't yet rewarded Sami's superbly supercilious character work. The writing, however, is quietly very good. Zayn's sycophantic adulation of Kevin Owens - "it's the Kevin and Sami show" - has already foreshadowed the eventual split, while concurrently casting him as a misguided figure of sympathy.
There's just something deeply loathsome about delusion, especially in these confusing times - and unlike storyline rival Shane McMahon, there's a reassuring acknowledgement that it actually exists, and thus we can genuinely invest in both his downfall and his redemption.