Sami Zayn Discusses The Talented Rosters of ROH and PWG in Late 2000s

In an interview with Fightful, Sami Zayn spoke about the amount of talent that was on the PWG roster in 2009 and the ROH roster in 2008. Many of the names in both are now former or current WWE stars.

He said: “It’s hard to remember how things were back then. Look at the independent names that were left on the independents for five to ten years. Bryan Danielson, Seth Rollins, myself, Kevin, Nigel McGuinness, all these guys were just doing the indies because guys didn’t get signed back then. We were off an island doing our own thing and creating our own thing. In hindsight, what a special time it was, especially for the independents that you could go see these world-class performers and everyone is better now than they were then, but at the time, we were really good back then. If you look at a PWG poster from 2009 or a Ring of Honor poster from 2008, the amount of talent that has gone on to be in WWE, AEW, TNA, or Japan, it’s a world-class roster. All this to say, it was really hard to tie up with someone and go, ‘This guy is good enough to be in WWE.’ We were all good enough. It wasn’t about talent. The mentality was, the real talent was there, and what you were getting in WWE was something else. Not to say they weren’t talented, but they were looking for something else. It wasn’t based exclusively on talent. I didn’t lock up with Bryan Danielson and go, ‘This guy is not quite good enough for WWE.’ It wasn’t like that. It had nothing to do with talent. There were a lot of other variables back in the day. It’s hard to remember because the world of wrestling has changed so much and the landscape has changed so much, in a way that may be regrettable in some respects because you’re not going to get guys developing on the independents and going through the wave and circle of life process that gets you to where you want to be by the time you come in, not as a finished product, but as a polished product. You kind of don’t get to get polished totally out in the wild. If you even start making a name for yourself remotely, you’re gone, someone will sign you up. I also might be speaking out of school because I’ve been removed from the independents for so long that I don’t have my finger on the pulse completely, but I certainly know it’s not like it was.“