Ranking The Subsequent Success Of Every NXT Champion

It's a mystery as to why WWE haven't strapped a rocket to Sami Zayn yet. He still attracts strong crowd reactions despite being booked to be on the losing end of things time after time, but the patience of fans will not last forever.

The Full Sail faithful took to him from day one as he was thrust into a captivating program with Cesaro, incorporating a two out of three falls match that still stands as one of NXT's best and a final match at the inaugural Takeover event (Arrival) in 2014. Sami's subsequent pursuit and eventual capture of the NXT Championship then became one of the best narratives of the year.

What should've been a heated angle with Kevin Owens had to be cut short due to injury, but what was Sami's loss became Owens' gain, leading to a natural feud upon Zayn's return in the 2016 Royal Rumble. Ultimately, their series of matches ended up being solid if unspectacular. The pair were kept together on Raw through the brand split despite logic seemingly dictating that they should be kept apart.

A short feud with Braun Strowman ended up being Zayn's only Raw storyline of note, leading to widespread calls for him to be moved to Smackdown instead. These were answered with the post-Wrestlemania superstar shake-up, but Zayn's booking has continued to be all over the place.

He is jostling for airtime in the midcard of a time-constrained show.