Ahead of tomorrow’s WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view, Ariel Helwani spoke with Sami Zayn about his storyline with The Bloodline.
Helwani asked Sami, “Could you have imagined that the arc would have come to this territory where you are one of the most talked about entertaining popular guys in the business today?”
Zayn responded, Yes. I don’t want to come off conceited or anything like that. However we already at this time last year, the idea was already in my head. Now, did I ever think it would actually happen? No. For a lot of this stuff, I mean, like this whole thing of like, you know, because I’ve said this in other interviews, but there was initially an idea, because at the time I was calling myself the locker room leader. Roman Reigns is obviously the head of the table. Actually, coincidentally, it was an interview with Roman that he did with you that kind of spawned it all off because you had asked him, ‘Is there anyone you would particularly want to work with’, and he mentioned my name, which I took as a huge compliment. So one time we were talking, I was like, ‘Man, I had this idea. Like, it’d be so fun to do some on screen stuff.’ Some of it was his idea too, like where it could go. But basically, it wasn’t to be like a full fledged member of the Bloodline or anything like that. But it would be very cool if we had this periodic relationship, where, ‘Hey, just checking in. How’s it going?’ Just to be able to show his character, a new side of his character, to show some range, and obviously it doesn’t hurt me to rub up with Roman Reigns on TV. So that was sort of the inception.”
“Where I thought it could go is eventually you know, you get close and whatever, and it could all lead to a turn. So I kind of had this idea of how it could go. I just didn’t think it would actually happen. In fact, even when the Bloodline stuff started, about two months in, I was like, okay, I don’t think this is going anywhere. I think maybe it’s time to just, you know, go in a different direction. It must have been even three months.”
“Then what happened is finally the stars kind of aligned because me and Roman were kept away from each other for the first few months, I think by design. I can’t say for sure, but I think. Then finally, Montreal, SmackDown, The Usos aren’t there. Jimmy Uso isn’t there. Heyman is not there. The stars just kind of aligned, hey, we’re finally on screen together and there’s some good chemistry, and the crowd there obviously loves me, so that heightened everything. That really gave it a whole new life. That was in August, and currently, we’re almost at the end of January.”
“So I’m not going to say definitively that I could have envisioned myself being where I’m at right now, because obviously, the answer is no. But I could have envisioned like, hey, if we did this story, and we do it right, I could see it ending up hot. This hot. But again, it still exceeded my expectations, and I still didn’t think it would actually happen. So a lot has gone on. But if you told me could you have thought of a clever story with Roman that would end up with you as a hot babyface, I would have actually said yeah because I kind of had an idea of something like that, but a year and a half ago. Again, I just didn’t think it would actually happen.”
Helwani asked, “Was there any part of you that felt like you had to earn their trust just to be a part of it?”
Zayn said, “I mean, if I’m being brutally honest here, maybe Heyman is the one I felt I had to convince because I think he’s old school. Roman’s his guy, and Brock was his guy, and he is very familiar with the top of the card. For him to be able to buy into me being a part of the act that’s at the top of the card, I don’t want him to be one of those guys that’s grabbing Roman and going like, ‘Look, you can’t work with him. He just did this stuff with Knoxville’, or whatever.”
“I know Roman knows I’m pretty good. That’s why he said what he said in that interview with you. I know the Usos think I’m pretty good and I think all these guys are great. There’s like a mutual respect. We are peers. With Heyman, it’s a bit more like, you know, he’s more strategic about things, things that I wouldn’t think of. Or he looks at the business in different ways, in ways that sometimes I wouldn’t look at. You know what I mean? So if there was anyone that I thought wouldn’t be on board that would have to get convinced, I thought maybe it would be Heyman.”
On if he feels the fans will revolt if he doesn’t win the Royal Rumble similar to Daniel Bryan in 2014:
“I think there’s a lot of casual fans who are just kind of along for the ride. I don’t think the fans are kind of where they were five, six years ago, where they kind of would like, revolt where they’re like, ‘Daniel Bryan’s the guy. You’re trying to give us Batista. No. We’ll force you.’ I don’t feel that level of like, I don’t know, borderline contempt from the audience towards the creative direction. I think because the story has been so interesting, there’s a little bit of trust in that it will go where it goes and it’ll still be fine.”
“I’m sure there are a lot of people who are pulling for me. That’s great. It’s nice to be that guy. But I don’t think it’s at a place where like Daniel Bryan was, I believe in 2014, where it’s like anybody but him is going to be a disaster, and actually it was, so they had to fix it. They had to play cleanup. So I don’t think that it’s necessarily the same. Is there a possibility of like, whether it’s Cody, whether it’s anybody, if it’s done right, you can do almost anything. It has to be done well, and has to be done just right. If It’s not done right, could there be some kind of backlash to, ‘Man, the story made the most sense. He was the guy the fans liked. Everything was right there, but they went this way.’ If they don’t do it right, there is the possibility of contempt towards whoever that person is, whether it’s Cody, whether it’s anybody. It could be anybody. If it’s not done right, it could kind of hurt that person. But you know, we work with a lot of people who know how to do things right. So if I’m not the guy, and I genuinely as of this exact conversation, one day before the Royal Rumble, I have no idea what the plan is. I have nothing. It just doesn’t feel that way. I try to listen to the fans. I try not to pay too much stock in the online kind of thing, but I’m sure there’s a good percentage like, again, if you follow nothing else but the storyline, it’s a layup that I would be in that conversation. What actually ends up happening is, again, it’s not my control.”
On if he could be the face of WWE:
“If I’m being honest, I could win the world title. I could carry it for a while. I could go do talk shows. I could do all that stuff. I don’t know if I’m the guy that you could necessarily hitch your wagon to for the next 5 or 10 years, like the face of the company for next 5 or 10 years, just if nothing else, because I’m somewhat realistic about my physical, you know, like, I’m not as big as say Roman, or Cena, or Brock, or whoever, and that’s typically the guy who’s at the head of that scene because they want a certain projection I think for the long haul. Could I win the world title? I think especially because of the way the story is done. As I said a moment ago, if you do anything right, fans will buy it and they’ll get into it. So I think at this point, the way things are built, and I’m not saying this is what’s going to happen, but if it was me and Roman at WrestleMania and I beat Roman, and we did it right the way we’ve been doing it right the last nine months, no one’s gonna go, ‘Bogus. I’m out. I can’t take that’, you know, like, because we’ve done it. I think I could be a guy who could carry that title for six months, go on Jimmy Fallon, make a couple of jokes, have him do that fake life that he does, all that good stuff. Sure, I could do that. Sure. I could probably do that in my sleep to be honest. It’s just, I understand the company’s projection of what they see as the face of the company. Not being the champion. The champion and the face are almost two different things. I feel like I could be the champion, no problem. As far as being the guy that they like, number one, he’s our guy. He’s the poster boy, He’s the ultimate representation of what our company is. I know physically, I don’t fit that mold. So I don’t know if that’s me, like, being self-deprecating or what it is, but I’m a realist when it comes to that.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Ariel Helwani on BT Sport with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
