WWE NXT star Sami Zayn recently spoke with JourneyofaFrontman.com. The interview was done before Zayn wrestled on Monday’s RAW and before Takeover last night. Below are a few highlights:
Adrian Neville being NXT Champion:
It’s great, I’m not the least bit surprised to be honest. Out of all the competitors, I know him the best and I’m the closest to him. I first met him and wrestled him in 2006, since then we’ve wrestled each other in eight or nine different countries all over the world before either of us even signed to the WWE. We’re longtime friends and longtime rivals in the ring. He’s probably if not my best opponent, one of my best components I’ve ever had in my career. So I’m not the least bit surprised, I’m so aware of what he is capable of. I’m not surprised that he became the champion and that he was able to rise to the occasion every time they’ve asked him to. He’s just unbelievably gifted and unbelievably unique. All you need to do is watch him once to realize what you’re dealing with and you’ll say, “Oh, wow! This guy’s on a whole nother level!” It’s just the beginning, really, because once he gets up on RAW every week and starts getting exposed to more eyes, it’s just a matter of time before he continues that rise to greatness.
His new theme song:
Actually it’s a funny story. At the Performance Center, we have these presentation skills classes or promo class or whatever you wanna call it where we can play around and do all these things. I like ska music and punk music, and Adrian Neville’s actually a huge ska fan of original sort of Jamaican ska and 2 Tone ska from Britain, not so much third wave, I think he’s actually kind of grown to hate third wave. (laughs) But the point is in one of these promo classes, I once did this sort of bit where I came out dressed in a 2 tone suit and played Bankshot by Operation Ivy and I just danced to it, there was no words. It was just a dance, I just danced for ninety seconds and then left. And then Neville and I were talking about how cool it would be if we did a ska tag team or something like that. So he had this idea for us to do a promo together again in promo class with the same deal, wearing a 2 tone suit, one of those Ben Shermans and just do the same deal as a tag team. I guess it was pretty entertaining for the class and for some of the people who were watching it. And eventually, some higher-ups saw one of our promos with us as this ska tag team and kind of saw like, “Oh, that kind of suits Sami’s personality more, maybe we should give him something like this.” So that music was made based on these promos we made at the Performance Center.
Who to watch in NXT:
One guy that I really think is starting to break out slowly is CJ Parker, I think he’s really good. He’s got a tremendous passion for this business. I think the first sort of debut in NXT with this hippie gimmick, he was a good guy, but it was just kind of corny and canned and the fans turned on him. It legitimately broke his heart. And now he has a legitimate chip on his shoulder and his hippie character morphed into more of a socially aware, socially conscious houlier-than-thou character. It’s way grittier and more realistic now. He really puts his heart into what he does and I think he’s gonna be good. And similarly, there’s Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady who are both just phenomenally entertaining. And I really look forward to their growth. I really look forward to watching them. And there’s a couple of guys that have been signs now, but have not yet debuted such as Kevin Steen and KENTA and Fergal Devitt. In my opinion, they are three huge, huge signings. They’re just taking three of the best guys from different corners of the world and bringing them to NXT. If you look back historically, when Vince first did that national expansion from a regional promotion to a national superpower, he did it by finding the best talent in all the territories and taking all the best talent. In a weird way, I feel like that’s what’s going on again now. You’ve got Kevin Steen from Canada, you’ve got Fergal Devitt from Ireland and you’ve got KENTA from Japan. He’s just selecting the best talent worldwide and we’re snatchin’ ‘em up. It’s just gonna make the product better here. These are my guys, these are guys I’ve come up with. So hopefully, we can all spearhead the revolution and be the next generation. We can take this business to an interesting place that maybe it hasn’t been before.
