Sami Zayn Reflects On The Bloodline Storyline Success – “This Drew Serious Money”
Sami Zayn is proud to admit that he was a big part of The Bloodline storyline that has drawn some big money for WWE.
Business is up for World Wrestling Entertainment these days. The crowds at shows are bigger this year compared to last year, television numbers remain strong, merchandise reports are very positive and if you watch the content regularly you can hear that the fans are as invested as ever. A big reason why WWE business is going so well right now is because of The Bloodline storyline.
The Bloodline story really began in August 2020 when Roman Reigns turned heel to become “The Tribal Chief” that won the Universal Championship (with Paul Heyman by his side) over 1,000 days ago.
Roman’s cousins The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) fell in line to honor The Tribal Chief while Sami Zayn became an “Honorary Uce” in 2022 before things fell apart at this year’s Royal Rumble. Solo Sikoa, the younger brother of The Usos, joined the group in September 2022 as well.
Consider the history made by The Bloodline at WrestleMania 39 when the Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens Tag Team Title win over The Usos headlined WrestleMania Saturday (the first time the WWE Tag Team Titles headlined a WrestleMania) while Roman Reigns headlined WrestleMania Sunday against Cody Rhodes. It may never happen again where members of the same stable headline two nights of WrestleMania back to back like that.
During an interview on WWE’s After The Bell podcast with Corey Graves & Kevin Patrick, Sami Zayn was asked if he knew how special The Bloodline story was while it was happening.
“For me, I definitely felt it. I knew it. Yeah, I knew it pretty early on actually, especially, I don’t know, really come maybe September? So this is a while back. That’s almost, what is that, six months ago? Maybe more. It’s something I’m particularly proud of, but also like a bit shocked by because if I may be so bold as to expose my own insecurity, it’s almost a byproduct of trying to keep yourself grounded and keep yourself humble.”
As he continued, Sami Zayn explained why WWE as a company is the draw, but then within the company, you can have storylines that drive the product.
“I don’t go out of my way to call myself a draw. I think WWE is the draw, and then within the product, you have components that are going to really help the product and I’ve always viewed myself as that. But this was the first time when I could look at something that I was doing and I’d be like, no, no.”
“This is driving business. This is drawing with every metric imaginable, merchandise, ratings, social media engagements, just general fan interest. Everything you have to go buy, live live events, attendance, everything was going up. Everything has been up. So it’s really the first time in my career where I’m like, I could point to something and go, to use an old school expression, this drew money. This drew serious money. So that’s cool. I kind of realized that pretty early on.”
In the same interview, Sami Zayn also spoke about how important his best friend Kevin Owens was for the success of The Bloodline story.