(WATCH): WWE Directly References AEW Then Edits The Mention

It’s on everyone’s mind. Over the weekend, All Elite Wrestling presented its first event with Double Or Nothing. This was one of the biggest wrestling events in quite some time and one of the biggest non-WWE events of all time. The show was mostly well received, but the question was what would WWE do about it. As it turns out, they would actually reference the promotion directly.

This week on Monday Night Raw, Sami Zayn took part in an interview segment called the Electric Chair where he took questions from the audience. After being asked some questions he found subpar, Zayn yelled at the fans, saying they could have asked him anything, even asking him about AEW. This reference was edited out of the clip of the segment posted to WWE’s YouTube page.

Thankfully, the internet exists and we can see things like this. Check out the unedited comment from Zayn:

And then the version that WWE posted:

Opinion: While he didn’t say anything specific about the company, just hearing Zayn mention AEW was quite the surprise. WWE almost never references other promotions outside of biographical features so hearing them reference AEW, the most talked about promotion outside of WWE at the moment, was rather surprising. I doubt it’s going to be done again for the time being, but once was enough of a surprise.

What did you think of Zayn making the reference? Will there be another one anytime soon? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 2000 Monday Nitro and Thunder Reviews Part 1.

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