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When news broke that Sami Zayn was going to be one of the competitors in a six-way Gauntlet match to decide on Gunther's Intercontinental Championship challenger at WrestleMania 40, it felt like a perfect chance for the “Underdog from the Underground” to finally secure his spot at the “Showcase of the Immortals.”
Sure, Zayn has been afforded chance after chance to get where he wants to be, losing his tag team partner last fall, the Royal Rumble in January, and his qualifying match for the Elimination Chamber in February, but after fully embracing his underdog roots, taking L after L while maintaining his roadwork optimism, this is the long-time grappler's chance to end another record-breaking title reign on the biggest show of the year, with a chance to become a four-time IC Champion a nice cherry on top.
Discussing his forthcoming match on RAW in an appearance on The Bump, Zayn discussed his last year in the WWE Universe, and how he went from a WrestleMania 39 main eventer to a performer still fighting for a spot on WrestleMania 40 less than a month before the show.
“Yeah, for sure. That's a great point. But I think again the thing that kind of centers me or anchors me and doesn't let me go too far down that rabbit hole is the fact that it's not just the last two years. You're talking about two years. Well, it's been 22 years that I've been doing this. So there have been some ups and downs in those 22 years,” Sami Zayn told The Bump via Fightful.
“Even when I was riding at my highest, you could say the main event of WrestleMania, that has to be the biggest match I've ever done, for sure, and having all that momentum going into it, I didn't buy into the hype. I feel relatively the same now that I did then. You have to kind of be grounded. You can let these losses shake you, fine. But only to a certain extent. You can let these big wins and big WrestleMania matches or whatever it is, all the momentum in the world, all the fans talking about you, you can let it feel good. Fine, to a certain extent. But you have to stay centered. You have to stay centered, and I think that's the lesson that just time has given. So 100%, again I'd be lying if I said, ‘No, no big deal.' I'm just being honest here, and maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I'm sharing too much. You're asking me questions, I'll give you honest answers.”
On paper, it makes sense that WWE hasn't booked Zayn like a world beater who easily wins every match he wrestles, as even last year, he routinely worked under in matches he eventually won on the way to WrestleMania 40 but holding him off of the card mid-way through March in order to bring things down to the wire? In a match against fellow Gunther rival Chad Gable no less? Well, this has a chance to either go really well for Zayn or serve as a crushing blow after last year's incredible high.
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Sami Zayn wants to make history again at WrestleMania 40.
Continuing his conversation with The Bump, Sami Zayn revealed what the IC Title Gauntlet match means to him, as it presents him with the best possible path to making history in a WrestleMania ring once more.
“I think the fact that coming off the highest of highs last year gets you questioning yourself when you don't quite have that spot carved in for yourself the following year. I think that's natural. We tend to compare ourselves to others. It's something I work on, to not compare myself necessarily to others, but you can't help compare yourself to yourself, from where you were a month ago, two months ago, a year ago, whatever. But at the end of the day, look, I don't want to sound like I'm morbidly depressed here or anything like that because ultimately, I am feeling good because all the things that I said would happen have kind of happened,” Sami Zayn revealed.
“That's where that self-belief is coming into play because I said I'd be a champion. I said that I'd do something, and I said that, even though it looks bad now, a path to WrestleMania will present itself to me, and now all three of those things are right within my grasp. The path is there. It's this gauntlet match. That's it. If I get through this gauntlet match, that's it. I punch my ticket to doing the things that I talked about it, to becoming a champion at WrestleMania, doing something historic, because make no mistake about it, Gunther is doing something historic. Beating him would be historic. Last year, I ended the longest reign of all time, the longest tag team championship reign of all time, and now this year, I have a chance to potentially end the longest Intercontinental Title reign of all time. That's historic, and that's what I'm on route to doing right now. That's where my head's in the game at. I'm trying to balance all that. Because there is a little bit of that self-doubt, but there's also this, it's beyond belief. It's beyond just self-belief. It's faith coupled with a burning passion to not squander the moment, and the moment's upon us.”
In WWE, nobody stays at the top forever. Still, until that final bell rings on RAW, Zayn is still a contender, which, as he noted, is all that really matters.
