Last night’s Raw saw one of the best and most unexpected WWE moments of the year: Bret Hart answering John Cena’s U.S. open challenge in Montreal, only to introduce former NXT Champion, fan-favorite and hometown boy Sami Zayn.
Cena backdropped Zayn very early in the match, and tragedy struck: Zayn’s shoulder was injured. The referee called for the ‘X’ — the symbol that a wrestler is actually injured and not just selling — but Zayn waved him off. The good news is that Sami was able to finish the match, and that the match was amazing. It was so good that most of us assumed the shoulder injury and the X were just part of the story, to present Zayn as the ultimate underdog against the unstoppable machine that’s spent the past decade pretending to be the ultimate underdog.
The bad news is that, according to WWE.com, the injury to the shoulder was legit. Sami’s scheduled for an MRI today, and ooooh no.
NXT Superstar Sami Zayn suffered a shoulder injury during his U.S. Championship Match against John Cena on Raw.
Zayn, who answered The Champ’s open-challenge defense of his title, was tended to by WWE officials during the match after appearing to aggravate his shoulder, yet he continued on and finished the contest despite the injury. WWE.com can confirm that Zayn will be undergoing an MRI on his shoulder tomorrow to determine the nature and extent of his injury.
Continue to check back as more updates are made available.
WWE.com isn’t the most reliable news source when it comes to finding out what legitimately did or didn’t happen to wrestlers during wrestling matches, but they also don’t normally do dedicated updates for in-match injuries. If Tyson Kidd works Kofi Kingston’s leg and Kofi leaves hopping away on one foot, WWE.com doesn’t always give us a medical update and tell us to check back for further details. That said, every part of us hopes this is just a wonderful storytelling wrinkle to make Sami Zayn a beloved, realistic hero, and not anything that keeps him out of the ring for real.
