Sami Zayn recently appeared on the Chad Dukes Wrestling Show. During the interview, Zayn discussed winning the NXT Championship at NXT Takeover: R Evolution and more. You can check out the full interview HERE and read some highlights below:
On his NXT Title win at R Evolution:
“Professionally, if anybody had followed my story going into the match, it was the culmination of like a year of chasing for this championship so the payoff was huge for the fans. It’s funny because we’re essentially two good guys, two fan favorites, we’re popular with that audience, but then I think they had just been pining to see me win after coming up short so many times, coming so close and not quite making it, that the atmosphere in the building was just electric.”
“I can’t even really compare it to anything honestly, it was one of the most unique atmospheres that I’ve been a part of and certainly they were very vocal and gave me their full support which meant the world, so when that 1-2-3 hit the mat the place just exploded. It’s amazing because I almost feel like it transcends what we think about wrestling, it was like a party. When your team wins the cup or your team wins the championship. You’re high-fiving strangers, you know what I mean? It had that kind of atmosphere, which is huge and to be the reason for that is so powerful to me and is why I do what I do. ”
“From a 100% real perspective, when I joined the WWE after 11 years on the independents there were a lot of questions whether I would survive in this environment. Because the independents are the independents you know, anything goes. Okay, you got over out there, this place is gonna chew you up and spit you out. So it was very symbolic on a very real level of conquering a system I was told would chew me up and spit me out. So there was a lot of vindication in winning.”
On a WWE NXT Championship Match taking place at WrestleMania:
“Part of NXT’s appeal to me especially amongst people like yourself, like you’re saying lifelong wrestling fans who are sort of like discovering NXT and being like ‘Wait, this is the kind of wrestling I used to like’ or ‘I like this.’ It’s succinct. It’s an hour-long, you’ve got some great wrestlers, and you’ve got great storytelling, and it’s simple and it’s gritty.
While at the same time, it’s so funny people forget it’s PG, it’s a PG product, but it’s so real and gritty and people almost lose sight of that. The whole point I’m trying to get at is, it’s sort of carved out its own little niche within this giant wrestling company that is the WWE. We’ve almost carved out our own underground following, it almost has a cult following, which is so strange to say because it’s part of the world’s biggest wrestling company.
So, I think if you were to have an NXT World Championship Match at WrestleMania while obviously for me personally I would be a huge thrill, I don’t think you can necessarily capture the magic of what NXT is and really harness it and put it on full display for the world to understand it, on such a grand scale like that.”
