Sami Zayn says his current gimmick is his best WWE work to date

When Sami Zayn arrived at WWE in 2013, most fans assumed that he would enjoy a fruitful career as one of the best babyfaces in the company.

Well, that was true in NXT, but on the main roster, Zayn has found most of his success as a heel, even winning his first main roster championship, the Intercontinental Championship, as an antagonist.

While you can quibble with how credible the character is as a wrestler, if you ask Zayn, it is among the best work he has done for the pro wrestling giant.

Sami Zayn says his “conspiracy theorist” character is his best WWE work.

Speaking to Fox Sports’ Ryan Satin, Zayn had this to say about his current character, in which he plays a hyper-paranoid conspiracy theorist with a victim complex (h/t to Fightful’s Robert DeFelice for the transcription):

"“I feel like this is definitely me at my best right now,” Zayn stated. “In that time, where I was off because of the beginning of the pandemic and not really having any certainty of what was coming next, I was off for a couple of months, and to be honest with you – and I’ve said this in other interviews – when I’m away from wrestling, I’m pretty away from wrestling, you know? I tend to compartmentalize it.“When I’m in it, I’m in it 100% and when I’m out, I don’t want to say I’m out 100%, but pretty close, you know? Of course, the bug bites me a little bit, every now and again, and I get flowing with some creative ideas and, “Oh, man. I can’t wait to do this and do that. But, for the most part, I didn’t necessarily think of what I would do differently when I came back.”"

Zayn debuted this character in the fall of 2019 on SmackDown, but really cranked up the conspiracy theorist aspect when he returned from a three-month hiatus in August 2020, as he feuded with Jeff Hardy and AJ Styles over the Intercontinental Championship in a re-hash of the Shawn Michaels/Razor Ramon “who is the real Intercontinental Champion?” storyline from 1993-94 (Zayn was stripped of the title in May 2020 after refusing to wrestle due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Zayn would win the title back at the 2020 Clash of Champions and hold onto it for 89 days in Honky Tonk Man-esque fashion before losing it to Big E on the Christmas edition of SmackDown late last year.

After losing the title, Zayn has added another wrinkle to the gimmick: he now has a film crew follow him around to document the perceived injustices levied against him by WWE. As of this writing, Zayn is scheduled to participate in an Elimination Chamber match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, with the winner getting a Universal Championship match against Roman Reigns later in the show.

You can read the rest of the Zayn interview here.