4/3 WWE TALKING SMACK REPORT: Sami Zayn rants about his documentary, Natalya & Tamina set their sights on WrestleMania, more

WWE TALKING SMACK
APRIL 3, 2021
BY NICK MORGAN, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

Hosts: Kayla Braxton and Paul Heyman

This week’s guests: Sami Zayn, Tamina, Natalya, and Seth Rollins

– Kayla welcomed us to the show with a rather over the top proclamation that we are just one week away from WrestleMania. She then went on to quickly recap the action on Smackdown and proceeded to needle Paul Heyman about how Daniel Bryan is on fire and left both Roman and Edge lying at his feet at the end of the show. Paul shot back a little bit with “not a prediction but a spoiler” that Roman would emerge from WrestleMania as the champion. We were then treated to two commercials, one for NXT TakeOver and one for WrestleMania featuring the Bad Bunny/Miz feud.

– Next we got to see the Sami Zayn documentary trailer and Sami was at the desk when we returned to the show proper. If you haven’t seen the trailer, it really doesn’t give any proof of the conspiracy, it is really just a lot of ranting by Sami.

– Sami was still in his outfit from the night before and did not look happy at all. He noted that he had walked the streets all night and told Paul that he needed to speak with him. Sami basically said that way back when Paul had admitted that there had been a conspiracy against Sami, but then backtracked saying Paul had blamed Kevin Owens for Sami’s problem and Sami didn’t believe Paul that Kevin was behind it. Sami then went on to say that he now knows that yes it was in fact Kevin Owens behind everything. Sami used this to lead into a promo about how he was going to beat Kevin Owens down at WrestleMania.

(Morgan’s Analysis: I will say here that usually Sami, even when he is in his delusional state, delivers great promos that even if based in insanity are coherent and somehow logical. On this show, Sami’s rantings were all over the place, were hard to follow and despite the attempt, generated very little heat for the match. I am looking forward to the match as Sami and Kevin have great chemistry and are great in the ring together, but the build for this seems so last minute that the story just doesn’t have it. For me the match is just about watching two wrestlers do their thing.)

– From there, Sami rambled on a bit more about wanting to know what Kayla thinks about the documentary and how they were hustling him off the set (which they were doing). Another commercial break was next.

– After another WrestleMania promo featuring Randy Orton, the Fiend, and Alexa Bliss and a Covid vaccine promo we are back with Natalya and Tamina. Natalya started off with a ridiculous “statement” calling herself and Tamina “statement makers, bone breakers and title takers.” She then proceeded to insult and degrade all of the other tag teams in the division before turning around and stating clearly that there is not enough focus on the women this WrestleMania season and that she is not going to take any more crap from the WWE.

– Natalya got very angry and Paul finally told her to cut the “bleep” and to stop whining, bitching and complaining about not being on WrestleMania and just go out and beat everyone down and just get on WrestleMania. After about a minute of this, Tamina got up, got in Paul’s face, and uttered her only words of this segment – “OK.” With that Natalya and Tamina left.

(Morgan’s Analysis: This was just stupid. They obviously had wasted so much time with Bianca and Sasha messing around with the tag team angle that they had no idea how to build a match for the Women’s Tag Team Championship so they have been doing this very messed up effort to build up a team to face Baszler and Jax and I predict that there will be some sort of multi-team match on Raw this week to determine who will be the tag team to go after the titles. My bet is it will be Natalya and Tamina at this point.)

– Off to another commercial for WrestleMania featuring the Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair feud. Then, we are back with Seth Rollins and his purple tie-dyed suit. As Kayla started to ask Seth about “escaping” Smackdown intact, Seth started to react, but Paul cut her off and took over, praising Seth and leaning into his ego and his visionary status.

– Kayla continued to hype the match and brought up the fact that this is Cesaro’s first singles match at a WrestleMania. Seth sold Cesaro as a quality wrestler and that he is not underestimating him.

(Morgan’s Analysis: Seth was very good here, maintaining his heel smarminess while not knocking down his opponent, but building up the possibility of Cesaro stepping up at WrestleMania. As much as I dislike this character that Seth is playing, he plays it well.)

– When Kayla asked Seth about Cesaro being able to swing him several times over the last few weeks and what would happen at WrestleMania if Cesaro got him in position, Seth went into full heel mode and said he didn’t want to talk about that and abruptly prepared to leave. To this segment’s credit, rather than having Seth just leave, he turned back and cut a promo on Cesaro basically saying that he is not ready and does not belong in the ring with Seth Rollins.

(Morgan’s Analysis: Seth can bring it when he wants to and either uses his own words or has some great lines written for him.)

– Seth said that Cesaro is not on his level and Cesaro will not embarrass him (which of course means he totally will). With that excellent promo, Seth was out, and Kayla sent us on our way with another “one week to the two nights of WrestleMania.”

FINAL THOUGHTS: A 29-minute show this week with several ups and downs. I will give them credit for trying to do something with the women’s tag team situation, but if they want to put Natalya and Tamina into the slot then today’s promo should have been on the main show (even though it was pretty bad). Sami had a bad night with his segment being very disjointed, he usually does much better. On the positive side, Seth’s segment was really good and worth a watch.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S TALKING SMACK REPORT: 3/27 WWE TALKING SMACK REPORT: Heyman questions Pearce, Owens talks WrestleMania, more