Sami Zayn Talks About Possibly Competing at WrestleMania 31

WWE NXT Champion Sami Zayn talks about possibly competing at WrestleMania 31 in a recent interview with Graham Caygill of The National. Zayn also discusses performing overseas, winning the NXT Championship, his Syrian lineage, and more.

What can the UAE’s WWE fans expect from next month’s shows in Abu Dhabi?

It should be pretty exciting. We have been here twice before and I was here last year. I think that because we don’t get to come out here very often, and maybe this sort of entertainment does not come to the emirates very often, that the fans are very excited. They are not the least bit jaded by it, so they are very impassioned, so it is going to be three very exciting nights to look forward to.

Can you tell us a little more about your Arabic background and connections to the region?

If you take a quick look at me you wouldn’t guess that I am Arabic, but I am a 100 per cent Syrian. Both my parents are Syrian and come from Syria. They came to Canada in the seventies, so I was born and raised in Montreal, but I am of full Syrian descent.

How big a moment in your wrestling career was becoming the NXT champion and the manner of how you did it by pinning Adrian Neville in December at NXT Takeover: R Evolution?

It was huge for me on so many levels, professionally and personally. I don’t even know how to begin to put it into words, but it was definitely a career highlight for me. 

The match was one of my favourites of my career against one of my all-time best opponents in Adrian Neville, who I have known for years and years, so it is a really huge deal for me to be the NXT champion. 

In the interests of full disclosure, from a personal perspective, when I came here, there is a lot of doubts on how are you will do, because I came from an independent wrestling background, and you are not sure what kind of deal you are going to get. 

So, for me this is a big symbol of having kind of thrived in this kind of environment in WWE on the NXT level and makes me very confident in that next step forward on to the main roster I think I can do just as well as I have down in NXT. It is very important to me and it means a lot.

How important is crowd reactions to you and other WWE Superstars? We have the seen the good with the amazing reaction to your win over Adrian Neville, and then the less positive with the crowd reactions at the Royal Rumble last week, so how important do you see interactions with the crowd?

That is a very subjective question and different people are going to give you different answers. Personally, to me, the crowd is the show, that is just me. Someone else will tell you something completely different, it all stems from your background and experience or whatever. 

But for the me the crowd is the show and it can make or break the show, and any great memories in wrestling in my life, as a fan, that I remember, that I cling on to, that I think moved me or affected my life or decision to want to become a wrestler or anything like that, if I really stop and think about any one of them, it is all about the crowd at any given moment. 

The easiest example is the Rock versus Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania X8. They are not even moving for the first few minutes but the crowd is dancing. You watch something like that have such a profound affect on these people that it moves you. 

So to me the crowd is extremely important and in the case of the night I won the NXT championship I think that is definitely a big factor in why it was so amazing. 

Even after the match and all the celebrations, it probably went on for 10 minutes, and they were relentless and just loving it. I could probably watch it back over and over again because I don’t think I will ever get tired of knowing not only was I a part of that reaction, but that I was the cause of it, and that is very powerful to me.

With WrestleMania 31 around the corner there have been rumours of a NXT match being on the card. What would being on the card of WrestleMania mean to you?

Obviously it goes without saying that it would be a dream come true to perform at WrestleMania. I really don’t know. I’ve heard rumours, but I put very little stock into them. 

But a small part of me feels as great as it would be to be on WrestleMania, you know the likelihood if we were featured in that kind of light, would be probably a five-minute showcase and that is not how you envision your WrestleMania debut. 

But listen, a WrestleMania debut is a WrestleMania debut, especially if you are defending a championship at WrestleMania. It would be awesome, it goes without saying. But I would hopefully envision a time when I can be at WrestleMania in a bigger role.

Finally, looking at the current WWE roster, who would be your dream opponent if you could pick anyone for a one-on-one match?

I guess it depends on the stage because a lot of the guys I really want to wrestle with again are guys I have already wrestled with like Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins and Cesaro. These are just some of the guys I think are the best period. 

So even though I have wrestled them before, to wrestle them on a grander stage in the WWE would obviously mean a lot. Even Adrian Neville, a guy I have wrestled countless times now, to be able to him to wrestle him in the WWE in say a WrestleMania match or something like that would obviously be a whole another level. 

I guess if there are guys I would like to wrestle before they call it a day Christian would be one, although I do not know what his status is. Rey Mysterio is another, though again I do not know what his status is. But those are a couple of guys I would love to get in the ring with before they call it a day. 

Obviously there is just so much talent up there. Cena is the top guy. You want to be in the ring with John Cena. Randy Orton. An amazing performer. I would love to get in the ring with him. Dolph Ziggler too. There is just so much talent up there now, that pretty much anyone you could work with would give you a pretty good match.

You can read the entire interview here.