After being defeated by Johnny Knoxville at WrestleMania 38, Sami Zayn was lost and unsure of his place in WWE.
Zayn’s solution was to seek favour with Roman Reigns and try to reestablish his respect in the locker room. This led to the acclaimed story of Zayn being accepted into The Bloodline despite much skepticism only to become a downtrodden figure. Things came to a head at the Royal Rumble when Zayn finally stood up for himself and smashed Reigns with a steel chair.
The next phase of the story saw Zayn reunite with Kevin Owens and take on The Bloodline, winning the Undisputed Tag Team Titles from The Usos at WrestleMania 39. Zayn and Owens retained the gold at Night of Champions after Jimmy Uso turned his own back on the Tribal Chief.
While the entire storyline has been acclaimed by fans and those within the industry, Zayn has admitted that not all of WWE’s management structure was as enthusiastic.
Appearing on the After The Bell podcast, Zayn was asked whether some didn’t think his involvement in The Bloodline would work, and he confirmed that it was true.
“Yeah, there were and I can’t mention names (he laughs). There were doubts as to whether it should even happen I think, even in its early infancy stage of it all.
So for me, actually going back to a question you asked earlier about impatience, there was a point when I was actually very impatient with the storyline and I was almost ready to abandon ship and just say, ‘Okay, we need to start moving on in a different direction if this isn’t gonna go where it needs to go’, because for me, the whole thing, it all hinged on me and Roman getting together finally and the swerve being like, ‘Oh, Roman likes this guy.’
You expect him to not like him, but then he meets him and he likes him. That’s the money of the whole thing is that he buys in. Roman drives the whole story. It works very well even if he’s not there, but because he’s the main antagonist, his decision at the next point in the story is going to drive and propel the story in whatever direction it’s going, so you need him involved.”
Sami Zayn Hits Back At Speculation About Saudi Arabia Absence
During the conversation, Zayn also addressed his absence from WWE’s events in Saudi Arabia. Zayn made his first appearance in the Kingdom for WWE at Night of Champions, years after the company began running shows there.
When asked about this, Zayn said that the vast majority of the reports about the situation were false.
H/t to WrestlingNews.Co