9 Wrestling Moves Sami Zayn Doesn’t Do Anymore
Now more a manager than a wrestler, Sami Zayn's once great moveset is now greatly diminished.
It all feels like it happened in another world, a parallel universe, a different time. Sami Zayn’s road to the NXT Championship was arguably the developmental brand’s greatest ever triumph, an organic story focused on the company’s best babyface, a man who scratched and clawed his way to the top against all the odds. The fans were with him all the way. WWE is always short of beloved babyfaces, but Sami Zayn was a sure thing.
That was 2014, this is 2020. Zayn is holding gold once more but the circumstances could not be more different. Sami is essentially a manager who has lucked his way into a title, no different to hypothetical situations where Bobby Heenan won the Intercontinental Championship. Surgeries have taken their toll, but one of WWE’s best in-ring babyface performers is rotting away as a largely non-wrestling heel manager.
A fantastic Twitter thread recently shined a glaring light on Zayn’s diminishing in-ring repertoire. The thread - compiled by Mith Gifs Wrestling (@MithGifs) - showcases a number of moves that seem to have disappeared from Zayn’s arsenal in recent times.
Why have they disappeared? Maybe because Zayn is a heel, and such crowd-friendly attacks might be counter-productive? Are the shoulder surgeries limiting his moveset? Or is WWE Creative simply doing what WWE Creative does? It is impossible to tell, but boy does the world’s largest pro wrestling company miss the in-ring magic of one of its best wrestlers.