10 Best In-Ring Workers In WWE Right Now
9. Sami Zayn
The recent booking to which Sami Zayn has been subjected is dispiriting. The man is an electric and inventive performer - his suicide dive/DDT transition retains its jaw-dropping awe years after he popularised it - but his quest for perfection has triggered the office.
Quite why the desire to become the best he could possibly be at the role his company pays him for is considered a bad thing is inscrutable - but that's WWE for you. What's more depressing about Zayn's predicament is that he has done so much to conform to WWE's preferred, story-driven mode.
As El Generico, he still managed to project his innate likability through his mask, but his natural babyface fire has been amplified unmasked as Sami Zayn, and it was his desperate, sympathetic and impeccably-timed performances that established Braun Strowman as something far beyond the typical hoss punchline he was initially received as. Zayn's perception is dubious in the extreme - so it's ironic that his immense abilities are used only to enhance the perception of others.
He is a phenomenal talent booked as something ordinary - evidence that, as progressive as WWE has become in the area of recruitment, the company remains its own worst enemy.