WWF until New York Summer Show

It was just a couple days ago that word started making the rounds that Sami Zayn is injured, and that’s why he was booked to lose to Bobby Lashley without putting up much of a fight at Money in the Bank this past weekend. Thanks to an interview he gave WWE.com, we now know the extent of it, and it’s pretty bad.

From the man himself (full interview here):

Well, right now I’m in Birmingham, Ala. I just underwent surgery for my right shoulder, a.k.a. my good shoulder. So, I’m out for a little while with that. I guess people don’t know about this injury; I’ve been working with it for some time. I don’t know exactly when I tore it. I think I tore it, or initially injured it, on a Montreal Live Event. Which is ironic because I injured my left shoulder — now somewhat famously — in Montreal in my [Raw] debut against John Cena. And at a Live Event this past August wrestling Jinder Mahal, I think I injured it then.

But then my left shoulder, a.k.a my bad shoulder, started to act up again as well. That shoulder hasn’t quite been the same since surgery anyway, so I had just kind of gotten used to the fact that that shoulder was the bad one. But it started to get progressively worse, so basically, long story short, it turns out I have two torn rotator cuffs. The left one and the right one are both torn. I just underwent surgery on the right one, and then in about six or seven weeks, I’ll be undergoing surgery on the left one, and hopefully I can come back healthy and happy.

So, really, Zayn is one of the toughest people you know because he’s been all messed up for a while now and it’s barely registered. That doesn’t cushion the blow of the bad news, that he’ll be out until at least 2019 and his best hope is that he’ll be ready in time for WrestleMania 35 next April in New Jersey.

What makes this even more of a shame is, as he says in the full article, he’s been finding his voice again as a performer and really finding his character in WWE. His run alongside Kevin Owens has been a lot of fun.

Heel Sami has been highly entertaining.

They're doing a multi man match at Extreme Rules to determine who faces Brock at Summerslam, right? Rollins could win that and face Brock.

Plus if you're having him drop the title, drop it to Elias for gosh sake.

Rollins was working with a "hurt" knee. He didn't lose momentum dropping the title. Drew obviously would have been the better choice right now. But that's what people wanted. Now people REALLY want Drew to win the title. Maybe I'm giving too much credit, but I believe what JR has been saying. They (Vince) have learned about shoving people into a push, or doing things too soon. Drew can be the heater for Ziggler for a while and pick up a base. I think we'll see Strowman v McIntyre headline a Mania. Rollins could be heading towards bigger feuds. I actually feel OK about all of it.

I worry about his health outside the WWE.  WWE is so scared of lawsuits that they are closely watching his matches and forcing him to take tests after each one.  ROH and NJPW won't be as strict.  Daniel, you have a hot wife and a kid, plus the WWE fans love you; stay in the company.

My God. What have we become?

With the lack of teams on Raw, I wish Breezango would've gotten a title shot or run. Feud with the Revival for the titles would've been good actually.

Wish they'd do something with them once he returns, but it doesn't seem likely.

Fashion Files during Dango's time off with Breeze helping him in rehab would be funny.

WWE didn't get any Emmy nominations

So that whole "please give us Emmys" event they put on was for nothing.

Thank God. I don't think we'd ever hear the end of them referring to themselves as "Emmy Nominated"

And he was also backstage tonight.

Only watch NXT. Problem solved.

One hour a week. Damn near every Takeover leaves you saying holy shit. And they're storylines actually build towards something.

And also watch New Japan. G1 just started and you can get invested in the tournament.

There's far better options than RAW or SD, but we keep going back because it's what we know & do. It's hard to quit it, but they're making it easier with their dumb storylines and awful acting and commentary.

If you're basing what they accomplish on the main roster as your reasoning not to watch them in NXT, you're going about it all wrong.

If anything that should result in you not watching the main roster programming as opposed to NXT. If they're putting on solid to great matches down there, with good storylines, only to go up to the main roster and be absolutely wasted, why waste your time watching RAW or SD if you know you'll be disappointed?

I do agree it's hard to get invested in Indy wrestlers as at times it does seem like a revolving door of talent, but these days if you're drawn to a talent like say Matthew Riddle, chances are he's wresting for different promotions all over that have streaming services that you can see him on. Once he gets signed to a major company, you'll be that more invested.