WWE champion Sami Zayn sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Orlando, FL to discuss winning the WWE Championship twice after more than a decade in the company, being part of The Bloodline and becoming an Honorary Uce, the huge reaction to hitting Roman Reigns with a chair, the story behind the “not feeling very Ucey” line with Jey Uso, his WrestleMania 38 match against Johnny Knoxville, El Generico, the decades of history with Kevin Owens, and more!

When you hear that you’re a two-time WWE champion, how does that make you feel?

“It’s cool. Yeah, here’s the thing that’s funny about it because even at the start of this year, which was nine months ago, ten months ago now, whatever, I was wrestling Drew, and I didn’t win. I had kind of just battled with it and went, you know what, maybe the ship sailed. I was real close a couple of years ago with all the Bloodline stuff and all that, and even in the fallout of that. Then I was close, but after losing that match, I was like, well, you can’t tell this story again. Maybe it’ll happen in some different way, and it did happen in a bit of a different way. But the Cinderella story, underdog who finally wins the big one- we burnt that card; that card was done after losing to Drew because you can only tell that story so many times. You can get them on board once, twice, three times, and it wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t. I didn’t have the momentum that I had a year or two prior to that. But I had to kind of struggle to accept that maybe I just missed the window, slipped through the cracks, and it just won’t happen. I’ve said this before in other interviews, or to friends, or my wife, or whatever. I’ve had a tremendous career, and winning the world title at that point is just the cherry on top. It would be nice to have, but it’s not like if I never win it, it’s like I never [got it]. You know what I mean? You don’t live and die by these things. You kind of just got to look at the big picture.”

You become the champion for the first time in June; if you thought that window had closed, what changed?

“I don’t think anything changed, and that’s actually the point. It’s that I kept doing what I do, which is making sure that everything I’m involved in is as good as it could possibly be. Eventually, a lot has to happen, even when you’re doing good work and you’re great and all this stuff to win the WWE Championship. It is like there is no such thing as a fluke win. I know when I won it the first time and it was nine days, in character you could say I was a fluke. There’s no such thing as a fluke WWE title win. To even be in the periphery of it is insane. To even be in the mix, to even be in the discussion, to even have title matches, even if you’re losing them, is extremely one in a billion already to be put in that position. So to win it, there’s an immeasurable number of variables that are required to be in that position. So there’s no such thing as a fluke WWE title win.

So I just think kind of slow and steady wins the race. You keep doing good work, and then it’s timing, and that’s the thing that a lot of people don’t account for. There are so many variables that are out of your control. Of course, you control what you can control, but there’s so many variables that are just not yours to play with, and I think timing ended up being the deciding factor, obviously on the day of or whatever, right place, right time, right variables going into it, all that. But also you have to work really, really hard and have this crazy level of consistency to constantly be even in the mix.”

At what point, when you’re putting together this on paper silly match with Johnny Knoxville, did you realize, oh, this is really going to be something special?

“Well, I kind of knew. So I’ll have these, this is gonna sound cocky for sure, but I’ll have these moments. Let’s say I’ve put something together and I’ve thought of it and I’ve reviewed it a bunch of times in my head, where I’m just like, oh my God, these people have no idea what’s about to hit them. Okay, I’m exaggerating. What I’m trying to say is, I’ll go, this is bulletproof, there’s no way this is not going to get them. But then there is self-doubt. So right up until the curtain, I would fluctuate between oh my god, even if you hate me, even if you hate wrestling, and you somehow got dragged to this show, this will get you. There’s no way around it.”

Did Johnny Knoxville have any wrestling experience before this?

“No. [He’s done stunts] Yeah, he’s not a wrestler. He’s not an athlete. But he was perfect. I think he was just perfect. I mean, I hate him.”

You still hate him?

“It’s this gnawing thing that just doesn’t really go away. I don’t want to get into all that now, but he’s relentless. He really is. What I mean by he’s perfect is you can’t really replicate that match with [anyone else]. At that time, that match could only be Sami Zayn versus Johnny Knoxville. You couldn’t put two other people in there and have the same match. That’s kind of what I liked about it. All the things that happened. It’s easy to watch it and reduce it to just oh there was a bunch of weapons and stuff. But in fact it was just a wrestling match, and those gadgets, that’s his signature offense, because his signature offense is from the Jackass world. He doesn’t have wrestling moves. He has Jackass stunts. So the moves were replaced by the Jackass stunts, but they still serve the same function.”

Was there a spot in that match that particularly hurt that maybe didn’t look like it should have? The bowling ball looked pretty bad!

“The table was crazy. That mousetrap table, that was a big one that really hurt. But that’s the one kind of sore spot because it almost gets reduced to a comedy match. Part of what I love about it is it had a little bit of everything. There are comedic elements, but there’s also some actual violence and some pretty serious bumps. That was one of them, but you needed them to have that fluctuation.”

Not long after that, it leads into the stuff with The Bloodline, which I feel like takes your career to just a whole new level. What does your career look like without the Bloodline story?

“No idea. I can’t even fathom it. I don’t know, because it just is. So I can’t play what-ifs or hypotheticals. I don’t even know how to answer that because everything is such a domino effect in this company and in life, but in this company, it’s almost impossible to say what would have happened if X or if Y, these variables. I’m not the only one with these stories, but tons of people will tell you if this one thing hadn’t happened, my entire career, my entire life would be different, and sometimes it’s super small things. Sometimes it’s things that have nothing to do with you.

I’ve told this story before, but the biggest break I ever had in my career, minus Bloodline and WWE stuff, what got me booked in the United States to begin with had nothing to do with me. It was because another wrestler from Canada called Sexy Eddie went to the States, and I won’t get into the gory details here, but there are gory details because he got cut open and there was a bunch of blood, and he was just an insane showman, and he captured people’s imaginations in this one night where all of a sudden these people were like who are these Canadian guys? Because of that I got booked. So the biggest break in my career had nothing to do with me. It was because Sexy Eddie got cut open and had blood spewing out of his arm, but still decided to put on a show. If he doesn’t put on that show, I don’t know how my career would have gone. Maybe I’d still be here. Maybe I’d still be in this chair. Maybe I’d be WWE Champion. Maybe I wouldn’t. I have no idea. But there’s such a crazy domino effect that takes place that you can’t even begin to get your head around.”

Do you feel like you should have won that night in Montreal?

“At the time, I thought there was a case to be made for it, but going back to the domino effect thing, I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t think it’s ludicrous to say I should have. If you were watching at that time, I think anybody could have made that argument. But it was just, again, timing, and Cody was also red hot at that time, and they were building to something. Then it leads to Cody the next year, and then it’s more gratifying. Whatever it is, just yeah, I don’t know. Could, should, would- would it have worked? I think so. But who’s to say?”

When you were working with the Bloodline week in and week out, was it your goal to get people to break? Was it your goal to get people to laugh? Because you were very good at it.

“No, I don’t really remember that it was a goal. After a few times, especially Jey. Jey had a problem where it’s like when you watch blooper reels, and then once they laugh once, they can’t stop. After I got Jey, I think a couple of times, then it became, oh no, this is just gonna keep happening, and I can’t stop it. But I think that is something that did contribute to the memorability of it because it is not something you’ve ever really seen. The fourth wall is kind of everything in wrestling, right? But that suspension of disbelief is the whole thing, but I do think there comes a line. I don’t think we ever came anywhere close to crossing that line.”

When you said the ‘Feeling Ucey’ line, it looks like Jey is fighting for his life. And then Roman takes a second to kind of like gather his thoughts.

“I think what also took it to a different level is when Jey kind of tries to hide, and Roman’s like, ‘no, no, no, no.’ Then it was over, then it was over. Again just a pro’s pro here. Understanding the energy in that room and the delivery to compound that effect was very, very well done, and probably is what cemented it. If it had just ended at the laugh and the whatever, it’s already a very memorable moment. But then the way Roman built up to it, like again, it’s music, right? ‘Ucey?’ That cemented it.”