Sami Zayn Reveals He Wrote His WWE Raw Return Promo, Contract News, Recovering From Shoulder Surgeries and More

Sami Zayn made his return to WWE TV last week on Raw and also in a brief appearance on Smackdown. This week, Raw and Smackdown will both take place at the Bell Centre in Montreal, which is Sami’s hometown. While Zayn was on both shows last week, he will be assigned to Raw or Smackdown this week as part of the Superstar Shake-up and based on last week’s promo, he’ll be in the heel role.

In a new interview with TVA Sports, Sami revealed that he signed a 3-year contract with WWE before he had his two shoulder surgeries last summer. That means he has about 2.5 years left on his current WWE deal since the time off affects the contract. The article that Zayn did with TVA Sports’ Pat Laprade is in French, but here are the quotes after translating it.

Here’s Zayn on what the recovery was like after surgeries on both of his shoulders:

“It’s been a long nine months with many ups and downs. Recently my shoulders have had a lot of inflammation and I feel my shoulders and arms heavier than usual. Even after nine months, I’m not exactly where I would like to be. But just before these recent episodes of inflammation, I felt in the best shape I had been in a long time. “

Zayn explained how last week’s promo trashing the fans came about:

“I wrote this promo. I had a model of the promo that I wanted. I sat down with an agent and dictated my promo. He wrote it and passed the validation process. I do not know if I am one of those who has this privilege. But that night, I had the chance to say what I personally wrote. Sometimes you say things you do not necessarily want to say in a promo. And sometimes it’s more like what you had in mind. “

Zayn also spoke about the vision he has for his heel character:

“My goal with the character, and keep in mind that it does not mean that this is how it’s going to unfold, is to have a character who sees more clearly because he has had time at his disposal. outside the bubble that is the WWE, who realizes that his work environment is toxic and who decides to blame the crowd. I do not want to say, for example, that the Canadiens (NHL team) did not make the playoffs to make me boo, that’s not the way I want to interact with the crowd. I want to find a different, new, more creative and intelligent way than what we usually see. It does not matter which city I will be in. I want to speak a different language. Because people have seen a heel that blames fans for its problems a million times, but there are also a million ways to do it. So even if basically the character seems simple, or even if it’s a type of character that we have seen many times, the execution may be different and the way to deliver it may be different too. I’d like to find a more sophisticated way to make that character. “

Zayn was also asked about his on again-off again story with Kevin Owens and he explained that it may be different if they do it again:

“It would be interesting to revisit this story that never seems to end. But for the first time in this story, I’d be the bad guy and Kevin the good guy. It’s going to depend on whether you’re on the same show or not.”

It was a great story on Zayn with some interesting comments. To read all of it, check it out on TVA Sports now.