Sami Zayn commented on his segment from last Friday’s edition of WWE SmackDown in Montreal, Canada, during the press conference following the 2023 WWE Elimination Chamber PLE.
Zayn said, “I had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to say, but then you also have to assess the situation you’re in and adapt. They were giving me a lot, and I’m not about to stop them if they’re doing that, right? That would be a strange choice, as a performer. ‘Hey, you’re screaming a lot. Let’s hit pause on that.’ Obviously, we have to roll with it. I think it created a very special, a very memorable reaction, a memorable segment.”
“I don’t want to drone on about the Bloodline storyline, but what a magic thing, to have so many memorable segments. We’re in the era of content, not just with WWE, but in everything. You have a cell phone in your hand that has access to every piece of information ever, in the palm of your hand, it’s insane. What I think is harder than doing something good now, because we have unbelievable talent now. Everybody is pretty good. The bar has been raised. Being good is not good enough anymore. The harder thing to do in the age of content is doing something memorable. Something people are going to remember, never mind in a week or two, that’s hard enough on its own, but with this Bloodline thing, if I may be so bold to toot my own horn and our own horn for everybody in front of the camera, behind the camera, and the performers who are executing this. I think we’ve walked away from this story, and it’s not even done, with so many memorable segments, TV segments, that people will remember five, ten years down the road. I hope that Montreal ovation is one of those. It’s not every day you see a performer stand in the ring for, somebody timed it, it was like five minutes and 22 seconds. There is a Quebec historian here, Pat Laprade, in the history of the Bell Centre, it’s the longest ovation in the history of the building. Uninterrupted ovation. That’s pretty special. I think people will remember that. I had to kind of adapt on the fly. There was more that I wanted to say. Part of it was things I wanted to say to say to the city. Part of it was things to advance the storyline. Part of it was touching on what I did with Cody (Rhodes) and acknowledging the self-doubt that I showed on Raw a few days prior, but when you’re standing and surrounded by that (ovation), it’s like, ‘let’s just punch them with the good stuff here and take the love that they’re giving,’ which I very much appreciate.”
You can watch the promo below:
(h/t to Fightful.com for the transcription)
