Sami Zayn Wants To Make History At WrestleMania 40
Sami Zayn has opened up about his mental state heading into WrestleMania.
WrestleMania 39 couldn’t have been much bigger for Sami Zayn. In the main event of night one he teamed with long-time best friend Kevin Owens to win the World Tag Team Titles, ending The Usos’ record-breaking run with the gold.
However, his path to WrestleMania has been much more uncertain. After some high-profile defeats, Zayn finally has a chance to book his ticket to WrestleMania on March 11th in Gauntlet Match to decide a number one contender for the Intercontinental Title. But, if he wants to succeed he’ll have to get the better of Chad Gable, Shinsuke Nakamura, JD McDonagh, Ricochet, and Bronson Reed.
During an appearance on The Bump, Zayn was asked whether the early months of 2024 have been more challenging than his run into WrestleMania 12 months earlier.
“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.
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,”
Sami Zayn Aiming For Historic Win
Zayn went on to explain how he’s questioned himself in recent months, but it’s only made him more determined to end Gunther’s historic reign.
“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. 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,”
Gunther has held the Intercontinental Championship for 640 days, having captured the gold on June 10th, 2022.
H/t to Fightful