Sami Zayn's first time working a WWE premium live event in Saudi Arabia was a memorable occasion for one-half of the Undisputed WWE Tag-Team Champions.
Zayn spoke with the folks from Inside The Ropes while in London, England for the WWE Money In The Bank 2023 premium live event last weekend for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Zayn spoke about the significance of his first trip to Saudi Arabia with WWE for the Night Of Champions 2023 pay-per-view earlier this year.
“That was a pretty big deal for me, for a number of reasons," Zayn said. "That whole trip was really remarkable. I guess, on some level, even as a child, being an Arab or Muslim growing up, never really seeing a positive representation of that in media. I always just assumed if I ever got to WWE that I would have to play a terrorist — I don’t know if you can use that, but you know what I’m saying — that was the perception and portrayal of Arabs and Muslims on television, never mind WWE, just in media. It was always sort of a thing in the back of my head, ‘Man, I’d love to change that one day.’ To be able to really embrace that."
Zayn continued, "The fact that even a major premium live event like that was coming and it wasn’t just like… those early Saudi Arabia shows felt very not WWE-ish. ‘Here is a WWE show taking place somewhere else,’ and we happened to be able to watch it. Now, that was a seamless part of the show. It was a progression in the story with the Bloodline and everything else, and it just happened to be in Saudi Arabia. For that to converge with this wonderful story that I’ve been lucky enough to be part of for the last year, for that to converge with this moment of me being able to come before my people and be there and have that sort of return, under those circumstances, was very special."
Check out more from the Sami Zayn interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to Jeremy Lambert for transcribing the above quotes.
