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Sami Zayn Discusses Working With And Learning From Roman Reigns

December 5, 2022 | Posted by Jack Gregory
WWE Smackdown Roman Reigns Sami Zayn, Paul Heyman Image Credit: WWE

Sami Zayn spoke recently with Peter Rosenberg on Cheap Heat and shared his thoughts on working with Roman Reigns (via Fightful). He spoke about the changes that have arisen from working with Reigns more directly and shared some stories about the performance dynamic he’s now engaged with regularly. You can read a few highlights and watch the full interview below.

On what it’s been like working with Reigns: “Getting to work with him, I learned a little bit more about his process at work. I’ve known him as a guy for many years and it’s always been very amicable, but it’s the first time I get to really work with him especially now when he’s elevated his game to a whole other stratosphere. One of the things that has impressed me the most is his poise. There’s kind of no way to learn that but to go through it and get it, kind of like wisdom. The only way to be wise is to live and learn. He’s lived and learned in this business. It’s reflected in some of those on-screen interactions.”

On Reigns’ unique contributions as a performer: “For example, the one we had at Survivor Series, which I kind of wish that backstage that we had done was on television because I think it would have gotten…people would have been able to sit in it a little longer, whereas, as part of the thread at Survivor Series, it was a great piece of the totality of the night, but it got us to where we needed to go. If it was on TV, it could sit and breathe for a week, people could talk and dissect it. I was really pleased with that backstage interview where he would look me in the eyes to figure out if he could trust me. If you watch that back, as I did, he sat in silence in a way that is very difficult to do, especially in a pro wrestling backstage. You don’t get 45 seconds of silence in a backstage, but he did it and it played very well. Each second made it more agonizing and more intense. Obviously, it’s not something you talk about like, ‘Okay, sit there for 45 seconds.’ His poise, ability, and confidence to hold that moment was very impressive to me.”

article topics :

Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn, WWE, Jack Gregory