[ad_1]
Sami Zayn is embracing the unconventional.
For the three-time Intercontinental champion in WWE, that’s what made his more than four-month feud with “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville – who recently cost him the IC belt — so unique as they get ready for their “anything goes match” on Night 2 of WrestleMania 38 at AT&T Stadium on April 3. The 37-year-old Zayn, who will be at Barclays Center on Friday when SmackDown arrives in Brooklyn, is getting to do things not normally seen in pro wrestling feuds and loving it.
Ahead of a big week, Zayn took time for some Q&A with The Post’s Joseph Staszewski.
(Edited for clarity and length)
Q: As a performer, what’s it been like to get to do some things that are outside the traditional wrestling formula, whether it’s going to the “Jackass Forever” movie premiere and getting kicked out, having that fun Royal Rumble moment with Johnny Knoxville?
A: That’s really been one of the biggest positives doing the stuff with him because he’s not a conventional wrestler. He’s not even a conventional celebrity in a sense. You got to do some very unconventional things to promote the match. Going to the red carpet premiere in Hollywood at the Chinese Theatre and then getting his messages and doing these text exchanges, which I posted online. Then he turns around and takes it to the next step and he gets my phone number and flies it over the city of Los Angles. It’s just not stuff that’s normally done to build a wrestling rivalry.
Q: Was that your real cellphone number?
A: Yeah. I couldn’t predict how many calls and texts I was gonna get. It’s in the hundreds of thousands really. It really exceeded my expectations.
Q: How long did it go on for and were there some of those that really stood out?
A: It’s still going on. These is never a moment where if I walk by my phone it’s not ringing or buzzing or there’s a call. Every second. It only started to slow down the last day or two. When I say slow down, it might be a minute or two between calls. But for that first week it was literally incessant and I have guys in the locker room who will back me up on this. It was pretty crazy. The one silver lining is I answered some of those calls and in some cases it really brightened people’s day because I don’t think they expected it to be a real number or me answering it. Some of the fans were very, very excited. Even though I’m bad [on TV] it did put a little spark of joy in me seeing some of the people who were genuinely moved or shocked by me answering the call.
Q: Were you a fan of “Jackass” growing up?
A: I wasn’t. There’s a couple of reasons for that. One, I was very consumed with wrestling and you would think wrestling and “Jackass” is a natural crossover. The thing about me — this going to sound weird coming from a wrestler – I don’t actually like watching people get hurt. I didn’t know what “Jackass” really was. I just thought it was a bunch of dudes running around and people getting hurt. And it’s ironic that I would miss the point of what “Jackass” is really about because I love wrestling and people constantly miss the point about what wrestling is about.
The way I kind of looked at “Jackass” is a bunch of guys hurting themselves and I dismissed it and I didn’t understand it’s not really about that, it’s about the camaraderie and the friendship and the laughter they share between each other. I see that all now. In my younger years, I didn’t see that and I do think there is a little bit of irony in that because wrestling is one of the great misunderstood art forms and I did the very same thing when it came “Jackass.”
Q: When you are in an “anything goes match” with Johnny Knoxville, does it feel like you have to be ready for anything whether it’s in Brooklyn or WrestleMania?
A: I kind of like that people don’t know what to expect. You don’t get that very much in wrestling. I think I kind of know what to expect [normally]. That’s what I find very refreshing. It’s a rare opportunity to give people something very refreshing.
Q: How much of the real Sami Zayn is in the character we see right now and do you think this version maybe is the one that’s clicked the most with the audience?
A: I definitely think there is a lot of the real me in there, a lot. I could have predicted that this was going to be me one day because I used to play foosball in high school with some guys that were really, really good, like tournament level and I was OK. I was mediocre, maybe get a few goals on them, but ultimately get annihilated. So the amount of trash talk that I would do and the way that I would get underneath these guys’ skin, I know I was onto something from a pretty young age.
It just took a really long time for it to come out because the character that I played on the independents (El Generico) was not a talker and then coming to WWE and being a good guy as I was for 15 years. I would say you’re a little more constrained as a good guy. You can’t just say whatever you want because you kind of got to worry about being likable. When you don’t have to worry about that the shackles are kind of off.
The reason I think the character has kind of clicked is because you saw the unraveling of the character. It’s funny because as a good guy I think it worked really well in NXT because they got to see the progression and they got to come along for the ride and watch this character develop. Then you come to the main roster from NXT and they’re just seeing this finished product. When you’re not along for the ride you don’t click quite as much.
Q: One of the recent fun moments was between you and Brock Lesnar. We are obviously getting to see a different side of him. What was it like to share that moment with him?
A: I was pretty happy with the audience’s response to it because I think it’s just two people you don’t necessarily off the top of your head think, “Oh I can’t wait to see these two in the ring with each other.” Then when they saw it, they’re like, “Oh, OK, what is this gonna be?”
I enjoy that fact that my character was a very good foil to bring that out or Brock. I can’t take credit, obviously Brock was Brock. I was actually quite taken aback by his comedic timing and his sharpness and all that. I really didn’t expect it and I think very few people did because he’s been this destructor that had [Paul] Heyman talk for him all these years. So I was as surprised as anybody.
Q: There just seemed to be this natural chemistry.
A: I get asked about it a fair bit and we only did two weeks together, so that must tell me we hit something kind of special. Wrestling, if you’re around long enough, I think eventually you cross paths with a lot of people. So I do hope it planted the seeds to do some more fun on-screen stuff. It’s been about a year and a half, two years now where I’m just having a real blast. That Brock thing was definitely a highlight.
Q: What does it mean to you to start to really be associated with the Intercontinental championship?
A: Chasing titles, I’ve never really been like that, but if there was one title I had a soft spot for it’s the Intercontinental championship. I’m not the first to say it. A lot of guys of my generation have said the same thing about the guys who kind of formed this new style, early predecessors of the style that a lot of me and my peers kind of use now – pioneers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, Mr. Perfect. Those are the guys when I became less in love with the spectacle of wrestling as child and more in love with the actual in-ring story of wrestling, that’s when the guys in the Intercontinental championship scene, I really started to gravitate towards them. So there’s a sentimental spot there and I do feel that recently I have started to become a little bit more synonymous with the championship and that’s a really nice feather in my cap I suppose.
Q: I know Ricochet took your Intercontinental championship from you, but he’s someone you haven’t really worked with in about a decade since your PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla) days. What’s it been like to get back in the ring with him and building this story around the IC title?
A: The independents and WWE are very different. On the independents, if you wrestle someone five or six times, “Oh yeah, we’ve wrestled loads.” But in WWE, if you wrestle someone five or six times you’ve barley even started to scratch the surface. I realized even though I know this guy, we’ve kind of been in each other’s periphery for many years. We really haven’t wrestled each other all that much. So now I’m tied up with Johnny Knoxville, but I feel like eventually it’s a matter of time before I cross paths with either Ricochet or whoever is holding that Intercontinental championship.
Q: You posted a photo on Instagram of you winning the two IC belts on top of the ladder in tribute to Scott Hall. What did he mean to you?
A: I haven’t met Scott Hall that many times, probably just a handful. It’s funny because when I was in the Performance Center in NXT all those years, his name would come up a lot from other people, other trainers would drop little nuggets of wisdom that Scott Hall has imparted on them. So it’s really kind of interesting to see the effect. He had just a very succinct way of putting things and they really clicked. He had a great mind for the business. He would say these things that impacted and affected other people who have great minds in the business that are now training others and passing that information on to the next generation too.
Q: As a close friend of Kevin Owens, what do you think this moment’s gonna mean for him to get to share it with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin at a WrestleMania?
A: I know, knowing Kevin from when he was 17, 18. I remember sleeping at his house and he had posters of Austin all over his wall. He was just a huge Stone Cold fan. We met him one time at an airport. There was this picture of him [and Austin] from 2005, 2006 and all these years later he’s on the verge of having Stone Cold’s return to the ring. I don’t know if it’s a match. I don’t know it’s a fight. I don’t know what it is. Whatever it is, it’s been 18 years since we’ve seen Austin in this capacity at WrestleMania and now for Kevin Owens of all people to be on the other side of the ring from him is pretty, pretty surreal. This is one of those moments where you have to take a step back and go, “Wow, this is nuts.”
Q: You have your Sami for Syria program that provides medical clinics to give health care to Syrian families displaced by the war. Why was that the way you wanted to give back to Syria and how would you like to continue to grow it?
A: This is a project that I’ve been doing for almost five years now. It’s grown a little bit, in this past year we now have two mobile clinics that are in operation and every donation goes a very, very long way. You can see directly where the money goes. That’s one thing for me personally as a donor and for someone who wants to do good in the world, that’s something that I think matters to me and to other people is you want to kind of feel that whatever little money you’re giving – because not everybody has $40,000 they can give away in a lump sum — you want to feel even if you are giving 10 bucks, you want to feel like it’s doing something. Because it’s so direct, you can really see how your money is going a long way. That’s why the mobile clinic kind of jumped out at me is it just seemed like a direct way to help people who were directly impacted by the war.
[ad_2]