Sami Zayn sat in another empty arena Monday night to talk to Jackie Raymond about a plethora of things. Somewhere along the way, after Zayn had spoken at length about his signature resiliency, a voice boomed from the heavens. For a moment, the WWE Universe might have thought that Zayn had died mid-sentence, and ascended towards the pearly gates.

The camera panned over to the Titantron. It was not the face of God on the screen, but rather, the face of Shinsuke Nakamura.

To be fair, Nakamura’s promo itself was nothing to be upset about. In between frantic texts between It was more of the usual: Nakamura was menacing, and taunted Zayn to show a darker side of him during their main event together later that night, lest he be cornered by a bloodthirsty Nakamura. What made this segment a flop was not Nakamura’s performance, but the absolute silliness of Nakamura appearing on a screen to talk to an empty audience.

The only way to describe Nakamura’s unceremonious appearance would be to equate it to mental whiplash. Imagine hearing a voice descend onto Zayn like a divine being, only for the camera to cut to a projection of Nakamura’s zoomed-in face (which itself violates personal space, even remotely). The whole cinematic organization was more humorous than serious — something that would be uncharacteristic in a segment involving two of “WWE Raw”‘s top stars — and it took away any bite that Nakamura’s threats might have had. While Zayn deserves a pat on the back at least for not giggling at the comedy of the situation, there should not have been any comedy in this segment in the first place.

I understand why WWE did this segment the way they did. Having subtitles on Nakamura’s Japanese promos benefits everybody: the audience gets to understand what Nakamura is saying immediately, and Nakamura can express himself as eloquently as he wants without a language barrier to worry about. It’s not even Titantron promos themselves that are the issue. This segment flopped because in its execution, it was made so unserious. Nakamura’s previous Titantron segments were played in front of packed, if not fully sold-out arenas, and his target was in the ring, right in front of him. Zayn, however, was sitting in some random seat in an otherwise-deserted arena, and because he was in a bleacher seat — which, for those unaware, does not have a lot of room to pace or physically react — all he could do was sit awkwardly and watch. The awkward and very visible camera crew around Zayn was, truly, the icing on the cake.

This is a rare instance in which a segment is so good, but for all the wrong reasons. It is surreal comedy at its apex: something that should not have been funny whatsoever is now riotous, because of some poor cinematographic choices. This segment’s celebrated absurd hilarity, however, is the reason why it flopped. It was comical, but that comedy took away from the intended effect of the segment.

Written by Angeline Phu