Sami Zayn has looked back on what was the biggest match of his career at that point.
Challenging Roman Reigns for the Undisputed Championship at WWE Elimination Chamber in his hometown of Montreal, Zayn received one of the loudest reactions that year as he walked into battle against The Tribal Chief after finally snapping at the Royal Rumble the month before. Although fans knew that there was a 99% chance that Reigns would be the one to retain the title and go on to WrestleMania, that 1% uncertainty heightened the drama to the point where some believed that a last-minute switch may be on the cards.
While Reigns was victorious that night, Sami Zayn still got his WrestleMania moment as he and Kevin Owens were victorious in the main event of night one. While professional wrestling history is full of what-if moments that could have changed the history of an entire company if a creative decision went the other way, how does the Intercontinental Champion feel history would have been altered had he walked out of Elimination Chamber the champion that night?
Appearing on Cheat Heat with Peter Rosenberg, Zayn was asked if he thought that he should have won the title that night:
“One thing is, I don’t know if there is a ‘should have.’ It’s hard to evaluate on a long enough timeline. It’s been (a year and a few months) since that. Seeing how it all panned out, let’s say that is where the title switch happened. Everything that has happened in the last year and a half, and there has been a lot of great programming, doesn’t happen the same. It’s the butterfly effect. One thing changes, all these things change.
You can go back to big moments and big matches, like Brock (Lesnar) ending the (The Undertaker’s) streak. When it happened, I was in NXT at the time, I was watching it with Juice Robinson. He was so shocked and he goes, ‘It’s going to take me five years to know if this was the right decision or not.’ It’s kind of true.
It’s like drafting someone in sports. You draft someone and it takes five years to know if it was the right call. It’s hard to say. There is no way for me to not answer this with bias. I am biased because it was me, it was that story, it was that point in time, in that place, in front of that crowd.”
“It Would Have Been One Of The Greatest Moments”: Sami Zayn
Continuing, Zayn stated that if he had won that night then like the ending of The Undertaker’s streak it would have been a WWE moment that would live on for eternity:
“All I’m going to say is, if I had won that night, it would have been something that lived on forever. I get that it’s a longer story that you’re telling with Roman, and Cody is waiting in the wings, but if I’m looking at it in a bubble, in a vacuum, unquestionably, if I win it that night, that’s a moment that lives on forever. Not just as me, in that moment.
As a fan, we ultimately gravitate towards special moments, special audiences, special times when everybody is collectively in a moment that you know will live forever. That would have been one of those moments. I don’t think there is any denying that. Whether it was the right moment for business or right choice or wrong choice, that stuff takes years to figure out.
If I’m looking at it in a vacuum, all I can say is that if I had won that night, it would have gone down in history as one of the greatest moments that lived on in 10, 20 years, and you’d still be watching back just for the crowd reaction, if nothing else.”
At SummerSlam, Zayn will defend the Intercontinental Championship against Bron Breakker in a rematch from Money in the Bank. The match will be another WWE milestone for Sami Zayn.
H/t to Fightful.