Title: Clapping Hands to Balled Fists: Inside Sami Zayn’s quest for redemption in Montreal
Date: February 15, 2023
Original Source: Sportsnet
Synopsis: Ahead of WWE’s Elimination Chamber event in Montreal, I wrote about Sami Zayn’s resonant character development, wrestling’s hottest angle, and what it means to connect at exactly the right time and place.
If you could see the lump in Sami Zayn’s throat beneath his billowy red beard, its size and quiver would betray two decade’s worth of hard lessons and self-doubt.
With a Monday Night Raw crowd in the palm of his hands, Zayn is delivering one of the best speeches in recent memory. On Saturday at Elimination Chamber, he will challenge for the title at the Bell Centre in his hometown of Montreal, the odds stacked dramatically against him. Across the ring from Cody Rhodes, whose story he finds himself unexpectedly intertwined with, Zayn lays out the mentality a man once dubbed “the ultimate underdog” has to carry with him.
“If you’re asking me if I believe I am capable of beating Roman Reigns, yes. Yes, I believe that,” he says. “If you are asking me if I think I’m capable of becoming the undisputed Universal Champion, yes, I believe that. If you’re asking me if I think I’m worthy of being WrestleMania main event material, yes, I believe that.
“I have to believe that. I have to believe that with every fibre of my being, because if I don’t, no one else will, okay?”
Continue reading at Sportsnet.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 