I hate to defend anything here, but pro wrestling has a long history of champs fucking with their belts on. Yes, people will probably make the same assumption I did earlier in the thread, but at least I can see the plausible deniability here.
Honestly everything wrong with that segment would be corrected if Sammy was a heel, and even if he was he wouldn't get nearly the heel heat Dan Lambert does and would end up babyfaced anyway.