In May 2015, Sami Zayn made his WWE main roster debut when he answered John Cena's open challenge for the United States Championship.
Unfortunately for Zayn, his debut got off to a rough start as he popped his shoulder out trying to engage with the audience during his entrance. Speaking to New Day on New Day: Feel The Power, Zayn discussed the unfortunate injury.
"I didn't really know what happened at the time because it happened so fast," he said. "I think it popped out and popped in right away. So quick that there was almost some denial. 'Was it a crack or a pop?' I didn't know, but it scared me a little. When my arm went down, it was back in and everything seemed fine. If you watch the footage back, I'm like, moving it to see if it was in my head and everything seemed fine. Another fun fact about that: it's my debut against John Cena, maybe the biggest star ever, in my hometown and I'm getting this amazing hero's welcome, and before the match, I put Vick's VapoRub under my nose and it coagulated on my mustache and so it looks like I have a booger right on my nose. If you go back and watch, it's not a booger, it's Vick's VapoRub. I get in the ring and I'm telling either the ref of Bret Hart, 'I think my shoulder just went out.' I'm trying to tell Cena, who is across the ring. I feel fine, but I don't know what happened. We wrestle for about a minute and he gives me a back suplex. When that happens, that's when my shoulder is out and it's not going back in. I'm trying to roll to the apron and my arm is just dead so I can't even roll. When I finally do roll, it goes back in place. The doctor gets in the ring and is like, 'Are you okay?' 'Can you pop it back in?' 'Is it out or is it in?' I said, 'What? YOU TELL ME!' I'm moving it and I said, 'I'm gonna keep going, just stand by.'"
Zayn ended up wrestling for over 10 minutes against Cena, though he ended up on the losing side of the bout. He would wrestle Kevin Owens a couple of weeks later at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable before taking seven months off to get healthy.
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