Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens spoke openly about a range of topics fresh off their WrestleMania win last night.
The pair reflected on their path in California wrestling from Pro Wrestling Guerrilla to the main event of WrestleMania.
Zayn compared the complexity of the Bloodline storyline to The Sopranos and added that some of the “best of the best” had never got the opportunity to tell a story like that.
Owens brought up the loss of Jay Briscoe and said that he hoped that they had made him proud.
They were speaking at the WrestleMania, night 1 press conference on Saturday night.
When asked about their history in the Los Angles region, Kevin Owens said:
We walked up the ramp, we looked at the WrestleMania set, we turned around and we saw the sea of people, the stadium, and the one thing that I said to him is, “None of this would have happened without Super Dragon and PWG,” which is where we made our name here in California.
Without the opportunities that he gave us, I really don’t think things would have turned out the way they did for us. So it meant a lot to be here, to do it here together.
It’s just really hard to put into words.
On the complexity and long-term nature of the Bloodline storyline, Zayn said:
Look, there are Hall of Famers, there are World Champions multiple times over — I’m talking some of the best of the best of the best ever — that have never gotten to tell a story like this over this course of time, with this level of depth, with this many talented individuals in front and in back of the camera, but especially on the performance side of it.
I feel just so lucky to have been a part of it. This feels like the culmination of it, although…it’s a pretty long timeline with WWE. So even if you think you’ve put a nice little bow on it, we can unravel that anytime and call back to it.
So much of it would not have worked with any other individuals. It had to be the Usos and Roman because that is a legitimate lifelong relationship.
It had to be Kevin because that is a legitimate 20-year friendship. And without those, that level of reality, bleeding into story, it just wouldn’t work.
One of the things that I take a lot of pride in with this story over the past year is that I do think it transcended the classical kind of wrestling storyline for sure.
I think this is much like you saw with television, how it kind of evolved to the golden age of television in the 2000s with HBO and things like that, and more complex and more layered characters.
It’s almost like The Sopranos. It is to WWE what the Sopranos was to television, if I may be so bold as to make that comparison.
Addressing how difficult it was to express his feelings, Owens said:
It’s hard to put into words, the history we’ve had here — things we’ve gone through to get to where we are, funny enough, most of which we’ve probably forgotten until something sparks a memory and then we remember what we’re doing today.
And we get to share that with our families that are here. Our families know each other, they’ve known each other for years.
What we get to share with our families and everything, but also everybody that’s watching is so well versed and knows everything that’s happened between us.
It’s really hard to describe feeling what we feel in the ring and knowing what the people we love are feeling watching us do it.
Zayn added that the emotion he displayed at the end of the match was completely genuine:
As soon as that three hit the mat, there was a genuine release of emotion that I did not anticipate.
Even if I, let’s say, plan as a performer to like, “Oh, this would be a good moment to display emotion,” that thought didn’t even get to cross my mind because it just, it punched its way out of my body.
You think about weird things. We think about things like landing here back when cell phones didn’t work when you crossed the border, and not knowing if anyone was gonna pick you up and waiting at terminal 5, and just waiting for Super Dragon’s car to come.
I know they sound like long stories, I’m about to drone on and on, but that’s happening in the ring, that’s happening in the entrance, you’re getting bombarded with weird memories like that, in conjunction with everything else.
I think that’s why it’s so hard to put in the words, because the mind has a really crazy ability in moments like this, in intense emotional moments like this, to throw multiple seemingly disjointed memories at you all at once, and then you feel all the things all at once.
When they were asked whether they had a message for their fans in Montreal, Sami said:
I can’t thank them enough. I think I speak for both of us here. They’ve made our careers.
I think what they did for me in August of last year when I got on screen with Roman for the first time after months of build-up, heir love for me is so contagious.
You watch it through the television screen and then people in like Little Rock, Arkansas are feeling that, they feel the love through their screen and then it’s contagious.
I just main-evented with my brother and won the tag team titles. I think Montreal actually has a huge part to play with that.
Speaking about the Elimination Chamber PLE in February, Zayn added:
I feel very lucky because not a lot of people get two WrestleManias in six weeks, but I did. It’s hard to compare them, but they’re two of the biggest, proudest nights of my entire life.
That night did feel like WrestleMania. Tonight had the happy ending though.
Closing out their portion of the press conference, Owens wanted to give some special mentions:
The Usos, even though everybody loves them and everybody appreciates them, they’re underappreciated. They’re the best, unbelievable. I don’t have enough good words for them.
And also, I said PWG helped us get here, Super Dragon helped us get here.
There’s two other guys that really helped us get here. Their names are Mark and Jay Briscoe. We lost Jay recently. I really hope we made him proud tonight, because, God, great guys and we really miss him.
