6 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Crown Jewel 2023

4. Zayn Thwarts Priest

WWE Crown Jewel 2023 Damian Priest Sami Zayn
WWE.com

Following on Sami Zayn’s vow to bring down the Judgment Day, his night wasn’t over after toppling JD McDonagh on Saturday.

At the conclusion of the World Heavyweight Championship match, Damian Priest ran down to ringside to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase on a wounded Seth Rollins. Suddenly, a hooded Zayn attacked Priest, snatched the case and fled with it, denying Damian the cash-in and almost guaranteed title win.

Briefcase theft is rarely the kind of thing that works, but in this situation, it actually does given Sami’s quest, which Michael Cole helpfully pointed out on commentary. Doing this provided the logical move of Damian Priest wanting to use his MITB contract and a plausible way in which he was denied, all leaving Rollins as the luckiest champion in the company who is hanging onto his title by a thread.

The theft also completed a pretty good night for Zayn, knocking off one pseudo-Judgment Day member and thwarting another.

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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.