5 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE TLC 2020

3. Here’s To The Next Step

You could easily criticize WWE for stalling on a push for Big E after the forced New Day split during the WWE draft, but they seemingly jump-started things Sunday night.

After Big E tormented Sami Zayn on SmackDown, he then pinned the Intercontinental Champion in an eight-man tag match on the kickoff show. Later on, we got to hear “leaked audio” from Zayn complaining about E upsetting his “Sami Awards” on Friday. This then led to a backstage segment where Zayn confronted Big E, calling him “a joke” who’s been “treading water since you went solo.”

It was a wakeup call of sorts to E, who stopped smirking, stiffened up and told Sami to “keep playing,” because he’d see him real soon. If there’s anyone who can act as a great foil to E right now, it’s Zayn. And it looks like Big E could capture IC gold on Christmas night if the stars align.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.