Sami Zayn is extremely honoured to be in the same discussion as Shawn Michaels.
At WrestleMania 40 Zayn became the new Intercontinental Champion after pinning Gunther on night one of the show. The victory was the latest memorable Mania performance from Zayn, which also included a Tag Team Championship victory alongside Kevin Owens in the main event of WrestleMania 39.
Following the monumental victory, Triple H discussed the respective performances of Zayn and Michaels at the WrestleMania press conference. Upon hearing these comments, Zayn admitted it meant a lot coming from Triple H.
Speaking with the Toronto Sun, Zayn looked back on his past Mania performances and was delighted to be mentioned in the same sentence as Mr. WrestleMania:
“Having my name even in the same breath as Shawn Michaels, especially with regards to WrestleMania — that’s an honor that is hard to even put into words,” Zayn said. “[Michaels] is one of … the best of all time and I know Triple H feels the same. … For him to even say there’s even a little bit of a comparison, I think, is a huge honor. It’s been a good couple of years for me at WrestleMania, I’d say the last three especially.”
Zayn continued, stating that there is no guarantee to be on the WrestleMania card so looks to capitalise on every opportunity that is presented to him:
“To be honest, I’ve had a pretty good track record at WrestleMania. When given that opportunity, I always want to swing for the fences. “There have been some great players in the history of our business who have had incredible careers and still haven’t gotten those kinds of real opportunities at WrestleMania.
WrestleMania is just hard to get on the card, let alone to have an important match or a good match or a great match, or one that I think is the hardest to achieve in this day and age, which is a memorable match. If I’m able to create any of those on that stage, I just think that’s whatever everybody aspires for.”
Also in the interview, the Intercontinental Champion gave his thoughts on the WrestleMania match:
“I was very happy with (the match),” he said. “Sometimes it just takes some time to digest some of this stuff. The bigger the match and the more eyes on it, sometimes the harder it is to get clarity about it. I don’t know if other performers feel the same way about it as I do.
“Sometimes when there are a lot of eyes on it, or if there’s a lot of hype, or there’s a lot of people, when you’re in the middle of a stadium with 75,000 people, I don’t know. Generally, I think I have a pretty good grasp of when something is good, or when something is not so good, but the bigger it is, sometimes the harder it is to really focus that.”
Backstage Reaction To Memorable Sami Zayn WWE Match
One Zayn match that took place at a previous WrestleMania greatly divided the opinions of wrestling fans as the Intercontinental Champion faced off against Jackass star Johnny Knoxville. The anything goes match quickly descended into anarchy with cameo appearances and comedy spots that purists despised but fans of the more entertaining side of wrestling loved. Discussing his debut performance at WrestleMania, Johnny Knoxville revealed the backstage reaction to his victory over Sami Zayn.