15 Greatest Angles In Modern Wrestling History
9. The Trial Of Sami Zayn
If there was one flaw to the Bloodline saga - and it's both massive and irrelevant, since the story is stupidly convenient but everybody loved it regardless - it's that every misunderstanding that drove the plot could have been resolved, easily, had the characters watched the television show. WWE acts are simultaneously aware and unaware that they are being filmed. It's stupid.
Or at least it was, until the Trial of Sami Zayn.
In the best case of better late than never, both Paul Heyman and Jey Uso watched hours of footage back to determine whose side Sami was really on. Heyman's prosecution was a hit piece, hilariously circumstantial, while Jey's was conclusive. That Jey, once Sami's biggest detractor, would literally leap to Sami's defence was genuinely heartwarming. He rescued Sami from Solo Sikoa's finisher, jumping into frame from out of nowhere at the last possible moment. This generated an eruption of a pop. The shot composition was superb. The "cinema" talk was always very dumb, but this angle was somewhat close. Between the creative and the production, this all felt like a deliriously joyful walk in a post Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn utopia.
And then, with rare, creative forethought - after Adam Pearce had already instituted a reactionary Freebird rule in favour of the Judgment Day a few weeks prior - Sami deputised for an "injured" Jimmy Uso mid-match. Successfully defending the Unified Tag titles with Jey, in a match against the Judgment Day loaded with several unbearable near-falls, this was Sami's big moment before the turn, before he finally rediscovered his agency.
More on this later...