Sami Zayn spent seven months on the shelf in 2015 after suffering a freak injury in his Raw debut. The former NXT Champion enthusiastically pumped his arms in the air prior to a match with John Cena and in the process, hurt his shoulder. Zayn was still scheduled to compete in an NXT Title match with Kevin Owens a couple of weeks later, though, and he made the booking, taking a quick beating from the prizefighter. It was there, according to the storyline, that Zayn suffered his injury. When Zayn made his way to the ring at Roadblock, the announcers detailed "The Likable One's" Raw return and attack on Owens. Byron Saxton recalled the bad blood between the men, mentioning that it was Owens who hurt Zayn, forcing him to spend so much time on the shelf and putting his entire career on hold. Only minutes later, JBL contradicted the official story by offhandedly mentioning that Zayn was hurt in the Raw bout last May against Cena. Not only was that not the sequence of events with which the company had run, but the statement was incongruous with what Saxton had just said. Michael Cole piped up, mentioning that Owens took credit for Zayn's injury, but there was still a disconnect. It will be interesting to see which version of the story plays into the Owens-Zayn feud.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
