Sami Zayn intends to capitalize on the chance to make history again.
Sami Zayn has been struggling to find his path to WrestleMania 40, as he failed to win the Royal Rumble match, and he lost an Elimination Chamber qualifying match. Zayn will have the chance to earn a title shot when he competes in a Gauntlet Match on the March 11 episode of WWE Raw. The winner will challenge Gunther for the WWE Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 40.
Speaking on WWE's The Bump, Sami Zayn was asked whether going from headlining WrestleMania 39 to not having a clear spot at WrestleMania 40 made this journey challenging.
“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," Zayn said.
Zayn went on to note that coming off such a high and facing a low by comparison made him question himself. He noted that he tries not to compare himself to others, but it's hard not to compare yourself to where you previously were. Zayn then turned his attention to the gauntlet match and stated that the chance to punch his ticket to WrestleMania was within his grasp.
"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," Zayn said.
Zayn previously said that the Gauntlet Match would be the most important match of his career. Check out his comments here.
Click here to see what Chad Gable had to say about the Gauntlet Match on WWE Raw.
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