Sami Zayn Gets The Shot At Dolph Ziggler At Survivor Series

The WWE is running an angle where Dolph Ziggler would defend his Intercontinental title against someone on Raw at Survivor Series. They settled it on Raw this week. Sami Zayn beat Rusev to get the title shot. I already talked about whether Rusev should get this push, so I won't talk about that again. Let me look at some other issues.

First, it is kind of lackluster to announce an open challenge and not really make it a surprise by having someone answer the call at Survivor Series. Regardless of whether it was Zayn, Rusev, or someone else, the WWE could have just had that person show up at Survivor Series. Build up some hype on which Raw superstar it would be. The way the WWE handled things, there is no surprise value in this angle anymore.

How about the decision to give Sami Zayn this push? Not a bad idea. He has been lost in the shuffle for a while, lacking a clear direction. He beat Kevin Owens and ended up like this. Pretty sad. I think he needs this push now more than Rusev does.

Is this a way to get Sami Zayn over to Smackdown, where he is likely to be used better? With the cruiserweights on Raw, that means just less time for certain people. Zayn might get a better chance to be featured well on Smackdown, where they still rely on tag teams that were relevant decades ago and chinless jobbers to fill out their roster.

On the other side of that, this match could just be fan service for wrestling fans. Sami Zayn and Dolph Ziggler are two guys capable of putting on the match of the night. Some people consider one of the matches Zayn and Owens had this year to be match of the year. Ziggler arguably had a match of the year with Daniel Bryan a few years ago. Zayn and Ziggler could steal the show at Survivor Series.

Let me go back to the point I made about keeping this open challenge a surprise until Survivor Series. Combine that with Sami Zayn being lost in the shuffle on Raw. They could have turned that into an angle. Let Zayn get frustrated at losing or being left off cards. The WWE would obviously be telegraphing who the "surprise" challenger would be, but there would be a story there that would culminate at Survivor Series. The way they handled things, the story isn't as great.