Sami Zayn doesn’t have a problem with wrestling fans criticizing what they see on television. What gets him is when people talk like they completely understand what’s happening inside the ring when, according to Zayn, there’s a whole other side of wrestling that viewers simply can’t see.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Zayn got onto the subject while praising Kevin Owens and explaining why he believes Owens doesn’t always get enough credit for certain parts of his work. In particular, Zayn praised Owens’ ability to stay present, read what the audience is feeling and adjust what he’s doing instead of simply going through a predetermined series of moments.
The problem is that those decisions aren’t always obvious to somebody watching from home. When Van Vliet pointed out that most wrestling fans have never experienced what it’s actually like to perform inside a ring, Zayn agreed and said people sometimes speak with a level of certainty that their experience doesn’t really support.
“Dude, let me tell you something. And I don’t want to sound like I’m trashing fans. I am a fan, but I notice I do this in other facets of my life. But when I tell you, people have no clue what they’re talking about — but that’s fine. There’s no way you can know what you’re talking about. So you’re making your comments uninformed, which is totally fine, but maybe just don’t have that same level of conviction. You know what I mean? People speak with such conviction when they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And I’m not saying they do it and I don’t. We do it in other things. I do it with sports or movies or whatever. Like, ‘Why would they do that?’ Well, dude, you don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Zayn wasn’t saying fans need to become wrestlers before they’re allowed to criticize wrestling. In fact, he made the opposite point — audiences absolutely have the right to judge entertainment without knowing how it was made.
He compared it to watching hockey. Zayn admitted he’ll sometimes watch a player make a mistake and immediately wonder how they could possibly screw something up, despite never having played hockey at that level himself.
“Right. But it’s not my job to be on a movie set to be able to appreciate movies, right? So the same way our fans don’t need to know this level of wrestling to be able to comment on it. It’s their right. But I guess what I’m getting at is, you know, I watch hockey. I’m a hockey guy, right? And sometimes I’m blown away. I never played hockey — I mean, I played hockey, but I never played in a league or whatever. So when there’s blunders, I’ll be like, ‘Oh, how does he give up the puck? Who makes that pass?’ Because I’m a fan, right? But there are times when I take inventory of what they’re doing, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, these are the most skilled human beings on the planet. How are they doing this?’”
Van Vliet pointed out that somebody watching hockey on television gets a completely different view from the player actually standing on the ice. Zayn said wrestling works the same way. A wrestler sees and processes things that someone watching from the outside doesn’t. Zayn compared elite athletes to “supercomputers” because of how quickly they’re making decisions while physically performing at an extremely high level.
“And the same way they don’t see the ring the way I see the ring, I don’t see the ice the way they see the ice. And on top of that, they’re supercomputers, these people. And they’re super physically skilled while being supercomputers. So these really skilled players are running a power play, and they’re basically moving at like 30 miles an hour on essentially knives on their feet, flying on ice while computing, ‘Okay, I have three guys here. I know there’s two guys behind me. If I put this there, the next domino effect is there.’ And they can see the game unfolding before they’ve even done it. You know what I mean? And that’s stuff fans don’t know that we’re doing.”
That gets even more complicated in WWE because the wrestlers aren’t simply having a match. They’re performing on live television with strict timing, production cues and other limitations that can force them to change things on the fly.
“There’s so much I can say on this subject, and I’m talking about just you’re in the ring, but you’re also on television, and there’s only so much time. And, ‘Oh, this is what you’ve got in your head of what you’d like to do, but you only have time to do this.’ So you’re doing equations and cutting and replacing, all while nobody knows this is going on in your head.”
Zayn also pointed to segments where wrestlers have to deliver an emotional promo and then immediately transition into physicality. In his view, those require two completely different mental processes, yet the performer has to move between them without the audience ever noticing the switch.
That eventually brought the conversation right back to Owens. Zayn believes this is one of the areas where his longtime friend is particularly great, even though it’s also one of the hardest qualities for fans — and even some wrestlers — to recognize.
“And it’s an extremely complicated thing. And sometimes, you know, you have a promo, and then maybe that promo bleeds right into physicality or a match. Those are two very different parts of your brain when you’re trying to get in an emotional state for acting and remembering things you want to say and how you want to say them, then things you also want to do. They’re very, very different compartments. And then you’ve got to do them both, and you’ve got to do them both seamlessly. And it’s just a very, very complicated art form that will never get the respect it deserves. And I’m not here to sit on a soapbox and tell everyone how hard it is, but it is an incredibly intricate thing. And just circling back to how we got on this subject, Kevin is really, really good at this aspect of it that fans and even a lot of wrestlers will never understand the significance of — what it means to just be there, actually be there, and just feel the moment and not just do the moment. And I know it sounds like nothing, but the difference is Kevin’s had the career he’s had.”
Zayn knows fans are going to criticize wrestling just like he’ll criticize a hockey game or a movie. His bigger point is that there’s a lot happening underneath a WWE performance that viewers will never know about, and sometimes the decisions that look simple from the couch are anything but simple for the person actually standing in the ring.
How much do you think knowing what goes into producing WWE television changes the way someone looks at a wrestler’s performance? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
