Sami Zayn held the Undisputed WWE Championship for nine days before losing it to a returning CM Punk, and the reaction online was that WWE had wasted him. Booker T is not buying it.
Told on the Hall of Fame podcast that the reign was being written off as transitional, Booker pushed back on the people making that case.
“I don’t look at it that way. I really don’t,” Booker said. “I mean, could Sami Zayn’s run have been longer? So many people were crapping on Sami Zayn winning the title, and then when he loses it, those same guys crap on WWE for taking it off of him. I’m just saying, you got to love it.”
He ran the résumé instead.
“Sami Zayn, the Undisputed WWE Champion, one time NXT Champion, one time WWE Intercontinental Champion four times, WWE United States Champion two times, WWE Raw Tag Team Champion, one time SmackDown, Triple Crown, whatever. This dude has done everything in the WWE,” Booker said. “I mean, he’s had a hell of a career.”
Booker noted that Zayn debuted in 2013, and said length of reign is not what sticks.
“Thirteen years in this company. He’s won every title. And at the end of his career, I don’t think people are going to be talking about how many days he had the championship,” Booker said. “No one was talking about Sami Zayn when he held the United States Championship 23 days before dropping it to Trick Williams. Nobody said anything about that. Nobody said anything because you know why? Because Trick Williams got it. Because everybody was hyped on Trick. Everybody wanted to see Trick Williams with the title, so nobody said anything about it.”
He offered his own record as the counterpoint.
“I can say this. I won the WCW Championship four times in one year,” Booker said.
His bottom line came with a message to the roster.
“The only thing that’s going to matter at the end of the day is how great of a career Sami Zayn had in the WWE. He won all the championships. Whether the championship reigns was what you wanted it to be, that’s neither here nor there,” Booker said. “But Sami Zayn, I’m gonna tell every young wrestler out there that’s listening, you better hope to God, and not hope, you better pray to God that you have a career half as good as Sami Zayn’s in this business in today’s era. You better pray.”
Booker used Zayn as a way into his own philosophy on creative, and made a claim about his own career.
“I’ve never gone into a wrestling match going to the producer or the writers and saying, hey man, what am I doing tonight? I always said, just give me the script. Just give me the script, and I’ll go out there and enhance it,” Booker said. “I’ve never once in my wrestling career gone to the office and said, hey, I got a creative idea. I’ve never once did that, because I just thought it was useless going to a Hollywood director and telling him to change the script. No, give me the script and let me see how I can enhance the script. That’s normally the way the good actors get over and get in good graces with those directors, where those directors say, hey man, this is the script right here, but do it the way you want to do it.”
That, he said, is what Zayn has done for 13 years.
“For me, Sami Zayn has taken that script, and he’s done it the way he needed to do it to get himself over, to have a hell of a career in this business, to be able to walk away from it, to be able to parlay this success into whatever he wants to do next,” Booker said. “That’s what this business is really all about.”
He closed with a warning about who young wrestlers listen to.
“Young wrestlers out there, don’t listen to these podcasters when they talk about somebody like Sami Zayn and what his career is, and that he’s flopped or whatever,” Booker said. “No.”
