Ranking Wrestling’s Greatest Friendships: Can Anyone Top The New Day?

6. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn

I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right: the likelihood of these two remaining friends after Sami Zayn returns from injury – especially in WWE’s current cynicism-heavy atmosphere – well, we have a saying in the UK: it’s as likely as hen’s teeth. Nonetheless, the long-awaited reunion of old friends Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn was one of the high points of WWE last year.

Brought together in a storyline which perfectly positioned them on the cusp between ‘heels’ and ‘antiheroes’, the Kevin and Sami show gifted us such joys as Kevin enthusiastically imploring Sami to “Hug me! Hold me tight!”. But what makes this friendship special is the sheer amount of emotional weight it carries when viewed against the long, fraught history between Kevin and Sami.

If you’re a believer in the theory that Sami Zayn and El Generico are one and the same then these two have fourteen years of friendship to draw from, spanning all the way back to their years growing up in Montreal. Their dynamic feels authentic because it is. It’s impossible to extricate the Sami and Kevin show from its foundations in a decade of Steen/Generico, during which time the duo perfected the fine art of the love/hate relationship.

The key here is ‘love’: no matter how long they spend apart, or at each other’s throats, all roads lead right back round to reunion. You might say they’re destined to do this forever.

The best part of Sami and Kevin’s onscreen friendship, though, is how both men are clearly having the time of their lives with it. Their real-life bond shines through in their double act, whether it’s in their impeccable timing, their in-ring chemistry, or just the sheer joy they clearly take in being able to live out their friendship on the WWE stage.

And fine. Maybe it won’t last. But while it does, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more genuine bond – even if they do express it through being thoroughly obnoxious.