Sami Zayn appeared on a WWE Clash of Champions Preview special edition of WWE’s The Bump and previewed his match. He also discussed how he felt when he was stripped of the WWE Intercontinental Championship. Here are some highlights:
On being stripped of the WWE Intercontinental Championship:
Zayn: “You wanna know the worst part is, I found out the same way everybody else found out. I found out through the press release online, okay, and look if they had said, if WWE management had just said, ‘We’re gonna, Sami Zayn is taking some time off due to personal reasons, we understand we respect that, which they did. They told me all that in private and that’s fine. But then to go publicly and release this press release, outright stripping me, was wrong. They could have just said we’re gonna crown an interim champion in the short term and I would have understood. I would have come back rightfully recognized as the Intercontinental Champion, maybe even said, hey let’s have a unification match, you interim champion you, you’re not quite the real champion but I’ll let you have a shot at the real champion here, no problem. But they didn’t do that.”
“They didn’t crown an interim champion, they stripped me, they took away my status as Intercontinental Champion and that’s wrong and that’s unjust.”
“Everybody knows I’m still the real intercontinental champion and that’s gonna be put to rest once and for all tonight.”
On who he’s most angry at:
Zayn: “Yes, I’m angry with WWE management, but it is what it is. I’m very upset with AJ Styles because he shouldn’t have partook in the tournament to begin with to crown this new fraudulent, sham championship, he shouldn’t have partook. There should have been solidarity in that locker room. They all should have said, ‘Hey wait a minute, that Intercontinental Championship belongs to Sami. This is wrong. We’re not gonna take part in this tournament.”
On being upset with Jeff Hardy:
Zayn: “For Jeff Hardy to win that championship, now AJ’s one thing, but Jeff ,everybody loves Jeff, everybody respects Jeff Hardy. How could you not? I mean, he was one of the reasons I got into wrestling when I was younger, and to see one of my idols like that, when the time came, when he won that championship the first thing he would have done if he understood etiquette, if he understood principles, if he had convictions, is he would have picked up the phone and called me and said, ‘Sami, I won this sham championship, it’s not the real championship and I’m gonna throw it in the trash because everybody knows you’re the real Intercontinental Champion, this isn’t right.’ That would have been the right thing to do and he didn’t do it and it broke my heart because you know, they say never meet your idols and this is why.”
The full episode is available here:
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