The WWE has been big on pursuing moments for a while, but nothing was more egregious than what wrestling fans just witnessed these past couple of weeks. Sami Zayn won his first WWE championship in Saudi Arabia, which made for a truly unexpected and exciting twist for the company. Not long after, he almost immediately dropped it to CM Punk in his first Monday Night Raw back in a while in front of his hometown crowd in Chicago.
I should've been thrilled for both, as a longtime Zayn fan and someone who feels Punk is having one of the best runs of his career. Instead, however, I felt empty, and like I noticed the WWE jingling car keys in my face. They gave Sami the belt in Saudi Arabia because of the pop, and they did the same to Punk because, again, the pop would create a big viral moment. To me, it seems the company is more than happy to chase the easiest pop to achieve, rather than work toward long and sustained storytelling, and that's a problem.
