Aleister Black defeated Sami Zayn on this week’s episode of Smackdown Live. This was a bit strange since WWE had previously announced that the match would be happening at Summerslam instead.
So why did WWE move Black vs Zayn to Smackdown instead of Summerslam? We have a rumor to pass your way.
According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio (subscribe here), this decision had a lot to do with the late re-writes to Smackdown this week by Vince McMahon. Here is what Meltzer said (h/t to Ringside News for the quote below):
“The Aleister Black and Sami Zayn match, the reason they did that [early] was when Vince showed up and he didn’t like SmackDown and he tore the whole show apart, when he was done with the stuff he didn’t like and then changing the main event, they had an hour to fill so one of the ideas fro that hour was ‘well, what can we do in this hour?’ — ‘Let’s put the Aleister Black and Sami Zayn on’ — so that’s one of the things they did to fill the hole so they took that off the pay-per-view so that’s the reason it’s off the pay-per-view.”
My Take: If that is true, it definitely sucks for Black and Zayn. I also wonder if it had anything to do with WWE worrying about Canadian fans cheering for Zayn over Black. Zayn is Canadian and would likely have received a nice ovation from the crowd in Toronto.
Let me know what you think in the comment section below or on Twitter.
In other news, check out our Wrestlemania 38 predictions.
On a related note, check out 5 mistakes that WWE should avoid making at Summerslam.