For several weeks, Sami Zayn has portrayed a heel persona on SmackDown, consistently finding himself at odds with Cody Rhodes despite attempts to smooth tensions. The conflict culminated in a WWE Championship match between Rhodes and Gunther, with Zayn serving as special guest referee. Zayn’s involvement ultimately cost Gunther the title, setting up a triple-threat contest at Night of Champions where Zayn captured the WWE Championship. Merely a week later, Zayn was scheduled to defend the title against Rhodes on Raw; however, Gunther attacked Rhodes prior to the bout, rendering him unable to compete. CM Punk was inserted as the replacement and defeated Zayn, ending his brief reign.
Vince Russo criticizes WWE’s booking strategy
During a recent episode of his podcast, “The Brand,” former WWE writer Vince Russo argued that the promotion placed the title on CM Punk merely to elicit a fleeting crowd reaction rather than advance a cohesive narrative. Russo emphasized the distinction between a manufactured moment and a story built to withstand the test of time.
“Ben, I swear, I talk a lot about this with Al Snow. And Al doesn’t even call it a pop. He calls it like a momentary, because you got to build to a pop. That’s what a pop is. A pop is to build to a pop. Then you get the pop. These are not builds to pop. This is like a momentary moment. That’s what it is, bro. And this is what this company has been doing forever.
I just said, bro, a pop is a moment. It’s a one-off. A pop is a one-off. A story is like a lifetime. If you have a good story, we’re going to talk about Andre ripping the chain off Hulk Hogan’s neck until people don’t know who Hulk Hogan and Andre are…..That’s the difference between a story and just for the pop.”
Russo further asserted that WWE’s creative team has overcomplicated its storytelling architecture, creating a convoluted environment where too many performers are competing for limited screen time. He characterized the result as an “absolute mess” that culminated in Punk winning the championship solely for the sake of a hometown reaction in Chicago.
“Bro, they’re making something so complicated when there’s so many things they can do to simplify it. That is the issue. They’re making this harder than it is. They’ve created a system and a foundation that everybody is running into each other. There’s too many people involved. There aren’t enough hours in a day to come up with freaking creative, and they’ve just created this absolute mess.
So now, at the end of the day, all you really have is let’s put the title on CM Punk in Chicago and let’s get the pop.”
It remains to be seen whether Sami Zayn will receive a rematch against CM Punk for the Undisputed WWE Championship.
