When Sami Zayn took the ring against Gunther at WrestleMania 40, he knew he needed to pull everything out of his bag of tricks to end the longest Intercontinental Championship reign of all time.

With Chad Gable in his corner, Kevin Owens still supporting him from afar, and seemingly the entire WWE Universe pushing for a change, Zayn still felt like an underdog heading into the Showcase of the Immortals and, as a result, needed to take things a step further to really ensure he could leave Philadelphia with arguably the most important IC Title win of all time.

His solution: the Brainbustah.

Discussing the decision to hit Gunther with El Generico's signature move when it mattered most in an interview with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Zayn noted that desperate times call for desperate measures. With Paul “Triple H” Levesque running the show, he felt it appropriate to dig a little deeper into his bag of tricks, even if he was apprehensive of it invalidating his Helluva Kick or his Blue Thunder Bomb.

“For sure, timing played a part in it. There were other times I thought of pulling it out, but it didn't seem right. This year, it felt right. With Hunter in charge, and he's a wrestler, there is a bit more leeway with that kind of stuff,” Sami Zayn told Fightful. “It's also different with the Package Piledriver because that's a piledriver. It's different from a brainbuster. It's a minor but significant difference. A piledriver has the potential to compress you more on the top of your head where the brainbuster, even if it goes awry, is a bit more on the back of the neck. It's a pretty big difference. I think that's why there is more apprehension in regards to piledirvers. I still think there's a chance we see the package piledriver in the right circumstance, but that's the thing; it's the circumstance. One of the other apprehensions I had about doing the brainbuster was, how do you come back from that if that becomes your finish? How do you go back to the kick or the Blue Thunder? That becomes the new standard. That was part of the reason I was apprehensive, but this year felt like the right time, match, circumstance, and opponent.”

Considering just how brutal the Brainbustah looks when executed, especially against a hulking monster like Gunther, it does make sense that Zayn would worry about it overshadowing his usual finishers. Still, in wrestling, sometimes a performer has to take things up a notch to get the point across, and since you can't hit an Avalance Helluva Kick, whipping out the Brainbustah every now and then to secure a win against a formidable foe makes all the sense in the world.

Sami Zayn reveals his most fun match in WWE.

Elsewhere in his conversation with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Sami Zayn was asked to name his favorite match as a member of WWE and identified an opponent that few fans expected him to pick: Johnny Knoxville.

“There is no other match you'll do where part of the buildup to the match is answering FaceTime calls from fans while you're in the bathtub. I've never done that before, I'll never do it again. I actually kind of got addicted to it at on point where, I was doing these loops, you know, like driving town to town from live event to live event, and the phone just wouldn't stop, so it would kill the drive, three hours I'd just be answering calls. And actually, I grew to enjoy it because it was an interaction with fans in a way that simply just didn't exist,” Sami Zayn declared via The Sportster.

“He's kind of obsessed with me because, again, he showed up at my show, I haven't interacted with the guy in years, and he still stalks my Instagram page, and like he's always commenting and insulting me. It's been years. He's a bit of a lunatic.”

It's true; Knoxville did show up at Zayn's comedy show as part of Netflix is a Joke Fest last month and even set the “Underdog from the Underground” up for a Wee Man Bodyslam that ended the show on a whimper instead of a bang. While only time will tell if Knoxville and Zayn mix it up in a WWE ring again, considering this feud is going strong years after their match at WrestleMania 38, it's safe to say WWE can always go back to this well whenever they want to.