After 21 years in the trenches, fighting through setbacks, gimmick changes, and even a character swap from indie to the WWE, Sami Zayn finally reached the apex of the industry when he headlined the first night of WrestleMania 39.

Standing in the ring with Kevin Owens, his fellow French Canadian whom he quite literally came up in the business with, the duo dethroned one of the most dominant tag teams in WWE history, The Usos, in front of 80,000 screaming fans and got to celebrate the biggest victory of their career in a city that helped to launch them to international stardom thanks to prolific runs in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla.

And yet, according to Zayn in an interview with Mark Andrews, WrestleMania 39 didn't go the way he expected it to, at least not initially. No, for a time, Zayn thought he would be main eventing Night 2 of “The Showcase of the Immortals” and would be working inside the ring against Roman Reigns, instead of his fellow Anoa'i wrestling family members.

“There was a time period going from Survivor Series building into the Rumble and especially right before and right after the Rumble. I 100% thought it could go to me and Roman at Mania, and it would be the best story, but that just wasn’t in the cards,” Zayn said via Fightful. “We talk about plans, and it’s very hard to have a plan and stick with it; there are all these other variables. A variable pops up, which is Cody’s return. It was a good thing. There was no rejection, he was widely accepted, and they wanted him, and they wanted him in the role he came back in. They were happy to see him win the Rumble; they wanted him to dethrone Roman Reigns.

“The stories even rubbed up on each other, where Cody rubbed up on us, we rubbed up on him, and the whole thing was helping each other. Everybody was lifting everybody. That’s when wrestling is done right. Everyone is elevating one another. Obviously, Roman Reigns is the biggest star, but when you put me in there, because it adds a new layer, even if it’s not something you could say out loud, ‘Sami Zayn could elevate the Bloodline’ because they are a top act. I gave it a new dimension. I helped them, but they helped me immensely at that point. Me interacting with the Bloodline and Roman brought my stock up so much. It was a case of the tide rising for everybody. When Cody came back, it was the same thing. He’s a huge star, I was rubbing up with him. The tide was going up for everybody. That’s what made that eight – nine-month period exciting. It was fun to watch the whole tide rise for everybody involved.”

To be fair to “The Underdog of the Underground,” he wasn't the only person who believed he'd be in the main event of WrestleMania 39, as more than a few fans put together expansive theories on how Zayn would still wrestle Reigns at “The Showcase of the Immortals” even after “The American Nightmare” won the Royal Rumble. Fortunately, Zayn delivered an incredible effort in his own right and left SoFi Stadium with a title in his backpack after all.

Sami Zayn weighs in on Cody Rhodes' match at WrestleMania 39.

Elsewhere in his conversation with Mark Andrews, Zayn was asked about how he felt Rhodes fared in his Mania main event match against Reigns. Earning a front-row seat for the show, as he and KO played a part in the match's final frame as they ran off The Usos before the finish, Zayn appreciated the effort his friend put in the ring before putting over WWE Creative for earning the trust of their audience.

“There were two parts to it” Sami Zayn said via Fightful. “One, Cody genuinely did have a lot of respect and equity with the audience, especially coming back from that injury, and they just like him. So, it wasn't the same thing as Batista returning, who they hadn't seen in years at that point, and they viewed him as a part-timer. You touched on something, which was the trust. At that point, the audience had learned to trust wherever the story was going.

“Even if they were skeptical and even if there were people who were like, ‘Nah, I really want to see Sami and Roman, or they should go this direction.' Over the eight months or whatever it was prior to that point, they learned to…even if it wasn't what they wanted exactly, we earned enough trust for them to go, ‘Well, okay, let's see where it goes.' I do think, strictly from a story perspective, it would have been great to see Cody put a bow on it, but it's still building. That's the thing that people, it's so hard to understand about WWE. We build to these things that appear to be these culminations, but there is always a TV show next week. We look at these things through the lens of TV shows and season finales. Even me, ‘Yeah, of course, Cody has to win,' but you have to hold on to that trust. I'm a fan, I'm invested, and I trust they'll pay this off properly at the right time and let's see where it goes.”

Will there forever be fans who think Rhodes should have dethroned Reigns at WrestleMania 39? Most definitely, but with a very interesting wrinkle added at Night of Champions and Reigns' 1,000 days as champion celebration right around the corner, it's clear Paul “Triple H” Levesque has plenty more in store for members of The Bloodline past and present.