Here’s how Sami Zayn won the Intercontinental championship

We knew this was coming, thanks to WWE itself spoiling the news shortly after it was taped last week, but Sami Zayn is officially your new Intercontinental champion now that the match with Shinsuke Nakamura has aired on Friday Night SmackDown this week.

What they didn’t tell us was how it went down, instead using it as promotion to get us to tune in to find out for ourselves. So that’s what we did, of course.

What we saw was Nakamura looking healthy again — he’s been out of action for some time dealing with a hand injury — during a relatively slow match that didn’t quite live up to their previous standards, especially with the finish being what it was.

There were still a few moments though:

Zayn would mock Nakamura late in the match and that led to a flurry from the defending champion. He seemed to have all the momentum but when he went for Kinsasha, Sami rolled out of the ring and used his newfound positioning to attack the knee Nakamura hit on the steps earlier in the match.

In a shocker, once he got back in the ring, Zayn kicked at Shinsuke’s knee and then pinned him right there off that. The crowd was stunned into silence.

Eat your heart out, Johnny Knoxville.