Having been part of WWE for over a decade, Sami Zayn is no stranger to competing on the Grandest Stage of Them All – but at WrestleMania 39, he and Kevin Owens made history when they won the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships in the main event of night one.
Speaking in a new interview with Sportsmail, Zayn opened up about the honor of participating in the first tag team title bout to main event a WrestleMania. According to Zayn, the long story between himself and The Bloodline helped make the tag title match worthy of main event status.
“Just something I’m very proud of, for sure. There’s a lot of reasons, but it’s the story that got us there. You’ve never seen a tag team title match main event WrestleMania, it’s unheard of. There’s only been one tag team match that headline WrestleMania and that was WrestleMania 1.
“The tag team titles have always sort of been in the background and that’s a testament to The Usos and The Bloodline and the whole story, they’ve elevated those titles. The fact that we told the story so good that we took something that was highly unlikely it would ever be in that position and then put it in that position, it’s something I’m extremely proud of.
“Almost more so than if I had risen as a solo competitor and say I’d won the Royal Rumble and then gone on to main event WrestleMania. That would be unbelievable – trust me, I’m not poo-pooing that! But a lot of people have won the Royal Rumble and gone on to headline WrestleMania – this was something different. It created something that didn’t really exist before.”
Continuing, Sami Zayn spoke about when he and Kevin Owens found out they would be in the main event of WrestleMania. While they’d heard rumors of main event status in the weeks leading up to the event, nothing was confirmed for sure until much closer to their match, and the uncertainty can be unsettling.
“I’m cautious here to not pull back the curtain too much. I had caught wind that was going to be the plan a few weeks out. But, for whatever reason, there was still this sort of – as WWE can be – this the card is subject to change mentality. It’s really unsettling. It’s like ‘let’s just commit to this, shall we?’ [laughs].
“It was pencilled in as far as I know – and again, I could be wrong because I’m not behind the scenes in those meetings – but as far as I know it was pencilled in for a while, just because the story had so much investment behind it and time behind it. And, it was simply the best story heading into the event. But, there was a little bit of ‘we don’t know what might change’ and this and that. “
Sami Zayn Wishes WWE Would Have Promoted His Tag Title Match As The Main Event Of WrestleMania 39
According to Zayn, WWE missed an opportunity to promote the first tag team title match to main event a WrestleMania, which is surprising for a company that’s usually focused on marking historic firsts.
“If I had one thing to do over, I’d wish we could promote it as the night one main event for a few weeks going into it because it genuinely was historic. We love to say ‘the first this’ and ‘the biggest that’ in WWE because we’re promoters. We promote these fights. So we had a legitimate first time ever and a legitimate ‘the biggest BLANK ever’. By virtue of headlining WrestleMania, it becomes the biggest tag team title match of all-time.
“To me, we had that in our corner and it was kind of a wasted opportunity not to promote to it. But I do understand there’s behind the scenes stuff, maybe stuff I’m not even aware of, caused us not to lean into it as much. But, if I could go back and do it again, I wish we could have leaned into it a little bit more.”