As seen during Monday night’s edition of WWE RAW, Samoa Joe confronted Sami Zayn backstage and then beat him in under a minute. This appeared to be a babyface turn of sorts. But following the match, he told the crowd that he didn’t forgive them for accusing him of attacking Roman Reigns. Of course, that immediately made him a heel again.
Dave Meltzer says this was done because the show was in Toronto, Canada and WWE didn’t want Zayn to get cheered during their segment. He said,
“They were in Toronto. They knew that Sami Zayn was going to get this incredible pop. That was the last thing that they wanted. With this gimmick, they did not want Sami Zayn getting this incredible pop. And one of the things is they had Samoa Joe call him Kevin Owens’ water boy and all that. They knew that people would go crazy for a Samoa Joe turn and that would enable…basically they’re not going to boo Samoa Joe when they first turn him because everybody wants him to turn but they [WWE] don’t want him to turn yet. So it was to keep Sami Zayn from being cheered and Samoa Joe just had to do that and turn right back because even though they know people are ready to cheer him like crazy and may turn him at some point, this is not the week they wanted to do that.“
