Sami Zayn says he thought his chance to win the WWE Championship was gone after he lost to Drew McIntyre at the Royal Rumble in January.
Zayn, now a two-time WWE Champion, told Chris Van Vliet on Insight that he had to come to terms with possibly never winning the title.
“Even at the start of this year, which was nine months ago, 10 months ago now, whatever, and I was wrestling Drew, and I didn’t win. I kind of had to just battle with it and just go like, you know what, maybe the ship sailed,” Zayn said. “I was real close a couple of years ago with all the Bloodline stuff and all that, and even in the fallout of that, and then I was close, but after losing that match, I was like, well, you can’t tell this story again.”
“The story of like the Cinderella story, underdog who finally wins the big one, we burnt that card. Like that card was done after losing to Drew because you can only tell that story so many times,” he continued. “It wasn’t the right time. I didn’t have the momentum that I had a year or two prior to that.”
“I had to kind of like struggle to accept that maybe I missed the window, slipped through the cracks, and it just won’t happen,” Zayn said.
Zayn said he made peace with it by looking at his whole career.
“I’ve had a tremendous career, and winning the world title at that point is just the cherry on top. It would be nice to have,” Zayn said. “You don’t live and die by these things. You know what I’m saying? You kind of just got to look at the big picture.”
Sami Zayn: ‘I Don’t Think Anything Changed’
Van Vliet asked what changed before Zayn won the title for the first time in June.
“I don’t think anything changed, and that’s actually the point. It’s that I kept doing what I do, which is making sure that everything I’m involved in is as good as it could possibly be,” Zayn said.
“Slow and steady wins the race. Like you keep doing good work, and then it’s timing, and that’s the thing that a lot of people don’t account for,” he continued. “There’s so many variables that are just not yours to play with. And I think timing ended up being the deciding factor, obviously on the day of, right place, right time, right variables going into it, all that, but also like you have to work really, really hard and have this crazy level of consistency to constantly be in the mix.”
McIntyre retained the Undisputed WWE Championship against Zayn at the Royal Rumble on January 31 in Riyadh, hitting him with a second Claymore for the win. Cody Rhodes won the title from McIntyre on the March 6 SmackDown in Portland, Oregon.
Zayn won the title for the first time at Night of Champions on June 27 in Riyadh, pinning Rhodes in a triple threat match that also included Gunther. He lost it to CM Punk nine days later and won it back on the September 11 SmackDown in Mexico City. Zayn has also said winning the title a second time felt like validation.
Zayn defends the title against Trick Williams on Friday’s SmackDown in Charleston, West Virginia. The winner faces World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns at Crown Jewel on Saturday, November 7, in Riyadh.
