Following the shocking events at this past January’s Royal Rumble premium live event that saw The Bloodline finally turn on the former ‘Honorary Uce’ Sami Zayn, Roman Reigns is set to defend the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship tonight against his former stablemate at the Elimination Chamber show in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer has now provided an interesting insight into the creative process behind tonight’s bout between the pair, revealing that Vince McMahon, who controversially returned to the company earlier this year as the Executive Chairman, has some creative input.
“The TV ratings for the last couple weeks, and no, you don’t change everything for TV ratings the past couple weeks, but all the signs are there (for Sami Zayn to Main Event WrestleMania), everything’s there, so, you know… It’s Paul Levesque and Vince. Vince does have input into this one. He definitely does. But still in theory it’s Paul’s decision and we’ll see, I don’t know, Pauls never been in this situation ever as a creative guy when this has come up, ever. So I don’t have 10 years of ‘this is what Paul does in this situation’, I don’t know what he’s gonna do. We’ll find out, but they have to protect Sami in some way, obviously I’m sure everybody expects Jey Uso to turn on Sami and cost him the match and because of that I would guess they wont do that, but maybe they will.”
-Dave Meltzer
Last night’s episode of Smackdown saw Sami Zayn bring back his “Worlds Apart” theme to a thunderous ovation from the Canadian crowd, with the upcoming title challenger soaking in the crowd reaction for a lengthy period before finally addressing Reigns.
Regardless of who emerges with the titles after tonight’s show, Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes is set to challenge for the gold in the main event of WrestleMania 39.
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